VENTURA : City Agrees to Help Build Eatery at Pier

Ventura will spend $830,000 to help build a fish restaurant at the base of the city’s long wooden pier, the City Council decided Monday.

The council approved construction and lease agreements with Eric Wachter, a local restaurateur. Wachter plans to move his Eric Ericsson’s Fish Co. from its Seaward Avenue site to the Ventura Pier when the restaurant building there is ready sometime next year.

The lease agreement, which Wachter still must sign, gives the restaurant owner a 10-year lease on the structure and the option to demand that the city buy him out if it refuses to negotiate a new lease with him when the old one expires.

The lease is set up that way because the city charter stipulates that Ventura cannot enter into a lease longer than 10 years on a waterfront property. The City Council tried to amend the charter this fall with a ballot measure that would have allowed leases as long as 30 years, a move that would have brought Ventura more closely in line with other coastal cities in California.

The proposal, however, failed at the polls.

The agreements state that Wachter must spend at least $200,000 of his own money on the restaurant’s furnishings, equipment and fixtures. His annual rent payments will either be a portion of the city’s construction costs or 6% of the business’ gross receipts--whichever is greater.

Under the agreements, Wachter will also lease and manage the pier’s snack and bait shop, paying Ventura 4% of the shop’s gross receipts for rent.