Funds Approved to Beautify Tapo Plaza : Simi Valley: The city votes to give the mall’s owners $150,000 for renovation, continuing efforts to upgrade the aging district’s appearance.

SIMI VALLEY —  Hoping to make flowers bloom in what is now a dusty, cracked parking lot, the City Council on Monday unanimously voted to give the owners of Tapo Plaza $150,000 to renovate the sprawling strip mall.

The plaza’s owner, Westwood Financial Corp., said the $4.1-million renovation, which has already included fixing up the building facades and adding a Blockbuster video store and a Taco Bell, will mean 221 new jobs for the city and an additional $136,282 a year in sales tax revenue.

But in approving the expenditures, City Council members spent more time talking about the chance to upgrade the appearance of Tapo Street than about the jobs and sales tax money.

“We don’t have many areas in town that are in that kind of bad disrepair,” Councilwoman Sandi Webb said.

Webb said she thought that adding flowers and trees to the dusty parking lot would benefit not only the site’s owners but everyone who drives by.

“This enhances the whole city, to have landscaping in a project like that,” she said.

Councilman Bill Davis agreed.

“I think it’s a good idea,” he said, noting that the area was badly damaged in the 1994 Northridge earthquake.

The council members also acknowledged that there is still much work to be done in improving the aging Tapo Street commercial district.

The City Council last week approved more than $600,000 worth of quake repairs to the street itself, and the city also is pursuing the demolition of an empty, quake-damaged Sears Outlet building across the street from Tapo Plaza.

Council members said they hope the face lift at Tapo Plaza will lead to the improvement of the entire neighborhood.

“I hope it will help to try and get some inspiration going for the other side of the street,” Councilman Paul Miller said. “I think that whole area out there needs upgrading.”

The 14.5-acre plaza was built in the late 1960s, before the city was incorporated. The sprawling parking lot has attracted loiterers and abandoned cars, resulting in an average 217 police calls a year to the site from 1990 to 1994.

Most of the city’s assistance to the project, $100,000, came from federal Community Development Block Grant money. The other $50,000 was in tax credits.