CAMARILLO : Movie Theater Complex Proposed

The Camarillo Planning Commission has taken the initial step toward allowing development of a 12-screen movie theater in a Daily Drive business park, the third multiscreen cinema proposed for the city in recent months.

The commission on Tuesday directed planning staff to help developer BKS-Camarillo Partners prepare a permit application for a theater in the Camarillo Business Center. The center is located in the 700 block of Daily Drive between Carmen Drive and Las Posas Road.

A spokesman for the developer said a major theater chain would operate the cinema. He declined to identify the chain.

The BKS site is directly across the freeway from where another developer, the Koll Leonard partnership, wants to build a 12-screen Edwards Cinema complex.

In addition, Pardee Construction Co. is negotiating with an undisclosed theater chain to put a 12-screen cinema in Pardee Plaza, the shopping center at Santa Rosa Road and the Ventura Freeway.

Pardee spokesman Bill Teller predicted that only one of the proposed theaters will be built.

“Camarillo probably can’t support more than one complex,” he said. “Whoever arranges his plans first will be the successful builder.”

City officials cautioned that none of the three developers have reached the stage of filing an application for building approval.

“Until they actually file it, until they actually build it, we don’t know if we’re going to get another theater,” Planning Director Tony Boden said.

The city has one three-screen movie theater in the Paseo Camarillo shopping center at Carmen Drive and Lantana Street.