July 6 was a perfect day to be in Oxnard instead of Palmdale. That Friday afternoon, Karen Adlhoch and her two teenage sons fled the 109-degree desert heat and ended up at Channel Islands Harbor.

They were the only tourists in sight.

Adlhoch, looking at the back of two vacant restaurant buildings at the harbor's Fisherman's Wharf shopping center, said the place looked "desolate, abandoned."

She was thinking of taking her boys to Ventura Harbor instead, where they might browse at a surf shop, buy ice cream cones or rent a paddle boat.

Ventura Harbor seems — Adlhoch paused and searched for the right words — "more like a real harbor."

Channel Islands Harbor is very much a real harbor, with more than 2,000 boat slips in the water and several boat yards, yacht clubs and boating-related businesses on land. But it has struggled for more than a decade as a shopping and tourist destination.

Some of the harbor's largest, most visible storefronts are empty, and the physical infrastructure is old and crumbling in places. A chunk of prime waterfront is occupied by the Lobster Trap Restaurant and the Casa Sirena Hotel & Marina — two Ventura County landmarks that even their owners admit are rundown shadows of their former selves. Five miles up Harbor Boulevard, Ventura Harbor draws more visitors and has filled all of its main retail spaces.

The county of Ventura, which owns and operates Channel Islands Harbor, is aware of these problems. This summer, improvements are under way that have been planned for years to make the harbor more inviting to boaters and land-going visitors.

The work in the water is being done first. Marina operators have replaced about 300 boat slips, with concrete docks in place of the old wooden ones. In five years, about half of the harbor's 2,227 boat slips will be new, said Lyn Krieger, the director of the Channel Islands Harbor Department.

On the land side, the changes will be even bigger. Developers who lease land at the harbor have pledged nearly $200 million in improvements over the next five to seven years, Krieger said.

A new hotel, the Hampton Inn, opened last month next to the Casa Sirena. Another new hotel is in the cards, as are restaurants, shops, parks and a boating center.

"I feel like we're hitting the crest of the hill," Krieger said. "We have to hang on, but it's really exhilarating to see some construction happening."

'A boater's harbor'

For the first 23 years after it opened, Channel Islands Harbor had one director: Tom Volk. Now retired from government work and the owner of a manufacturing business in Santa Paula, he's still got plenty of opinions on the harbor.

Volk said he thinks the county is trying to over-commercialize the area. The hand-wringing over all of the vacant restaurant buildings is proof, he said.

"If the restaurants aren't working, take 'em out and put in more marinas," Volk said. "This should be a marine recreation facility for the people of the county of Ventura. Treat it like a park or a public utility, not a shopping mall."

But even investing in the marinas can make boat owners nervous. Some of them worry the renovations will bring higher prices and drive middle-class boaters out of what is still one of Southern California's most affordable harbors.

"This a very expensive hobby to get into," said Bill Stok, a Silver Strand resident and tavern owner who keeps a boat at Channel Islands Harbor marina. "This is the only place people like us can afford to do this."

Stok and his wife, Heidi, pay $235 a month for a 30-foot slip on one of the new docks, which puts their boat near the smaller end of the spectrum. The price is "very reasonable," he said, but he's worried that as the renovations continue, the marina operators will phase out smaller slips like his in favor of spots for huge yachts.

"There won't be anywhere for us to go," he said.

The county isn't going to let that happen, Krieger said. Channel Islands Harbor is a "boater's harbor," and it will still be one when the redevelopment is finished, she said.

"What did we do first?" she said. "We did the water-side improvements first. We took care of the boaters first. That's our top priority."

Marina operators are raising their rates to pay for the improvements, but they're not phasing out small slips, Krieger said. When the work is done, the harbor will have the same ratio of small to large slips that it does now.

In Krieger's view, the harbor's boat-centric philosophy is what distinguishes it from Ventura Harbor, which is run by commissioners appointed by the Ventura City Council.

Ventura Harbor might be a more attractive place to sip a cappuccino and stroll along the waterfront, Krieger said, but it has about 1,000 fewer boat slips than Channel Islands Harbor. If Channel Islands Harbor can become a thriving business destination, it will be on the strength of its boating culture and amenities, she said.

The dissenter

Even when there's a general consensus on where the harbor should go, there's been a fight over how to get it there.

County Supervisor John Flynn has been the sole dissenter on a series of Board of Supervisors votes authorizing Krieger to proceed. When asked about the harbor, he turns immediately to what he says is Krieger's mismanagement.

Flynn said he has three chief complaints: the lack of progress in the past decade; the danger that harbor gentrification could drive out the blue-collar boater; and the process by which the plans have been approved, which Flynn says has kept the public in the dark.

"My main criticism of the harbor is the process," he said. "It's more like running a private business. There's always been a public-private partnership, but it's gone too much toward the private."

The board's recent decision to award the Fisherman's Wharf lease to developer Edward Czuker is one example, Flynn said. He said he thinks Czuker should have submitted a detailed development plan before the county granted him a lease that could last as long as 65 years.

Krieger said she was simply following the board's instructions, which were to evaluate candidates based on their development experience and wait to solicit a detailed proposal.

The project that has drawn the worst of Flynn's ire is the planned boating instruction and safety center, often called the BISC. A joint effort by the county, the state and CSU Channel Islands, the center would be a place where children and adults could learn how to sail, and the university could hold oceanography and marine biology sessions.

The idea was not controversial, but it spawned five years of fighting over where to put the center.

The county's plans call for it on the west side of the harbor, off of Channel Islands Boulevard. Flynn, a group of local residents and some environmentalists pushed for a spot on the east side, off of Victoria Avenue.

The project was approved for the west side by the California Coastal Commission, but it's on hold for now because a court has ordered the Coastal Commission to provide another study of the site.

"The BISC thing was very divisive, and it didn't need to be," Flynn said. "The public wants to be involved, and they don't feel they are."

Krieger counters that the location was chosen only after many public hearings. It's also ironic, she said, that Flynn complains about the slow pace of change when he's often the one holding things up.

Doing business

Krieger is supported by the harbor's "master lease holders," the businesses that lease large potions of the harbor and then sublease their buildings to smaller shopkeepers.

Greystar Real Estate Partners, the company that owns the Lobster Trap, the hotels and the apartments on the harbor's peninsula, thinks Krieger has been "phenomenal" to work with, said Wes Whitman, a principal with Greystar.

Greystar has fixed up the apartment buildings and replaced part of the Casa Sirena with the Hampton Inn, and now it's drawing up plans to rebuild the rest of the hotel and replace the Lobster Trap with a new restaurant. The redevelopment plan also will include an expanded public park and a promenade along the water, Whitman said.

In the 1970s and '80s, the peninsula property was the heart of the harbor, and one of the jewels of developer Martin "Bud" Smith's Oxnard empire. The Lobster Trap was where Oxnard residents wooed clients and proposed marriages.

Today, the signs out front promote the early bird specials. Whitman admits that it's "had better times."

On a recent Saturday, Rose Dunbar, a Ventura native who now lives in Arkansas, was back in Ventura to visit family. Walking along Seaward Avenue near the beach, she asked her relatives if the Lobster Trap was still open. They couldn't say for sure.

"That was the place to be when I was a kid, back in the '70s, and now it's nowhere," Dunbar said.

"The whole harbor looks the same, like nothing's been done since then."

'What the hell did I do?'

When Barry Beauchamp opened his bar and grill, Spectrum, at the Harbor Landing shopping center, he moved in upstairs from a large, empty restaurant space. Two years later, the spot is still empty, with a notice posted in the window that the former owners have gone bankrupt.

Spectrum, though, is doing well. Beauchamp is working 12-hour days to make it happen, but he thinks the place is going to survive.

"We have live music six days a week, and we have a great group of locals," he said. "Without that, the doors would be locked. There's been some days I go, What the hell did I do?', but it's really working out OK."

Beauchamp still shakes his head at some of the hassles of doing business in the harbor. He doesn't like paying a share of his sales to the Harbor Department, on top of his base monthly rent.

When the marina and parking lot near Harbor Landing were renovated, it made it tough to find his restaurant for months.

And although major redevelopment will mean more of those hassles, he's all for it.

"They have to do something to this place," he said, nodding out of his window toward the harbor, and Fisherman's Wharf on the other side.

It's the one thing everyone seems to agree on.

Time line

1959-1960: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers digs the Channel Islands Harbor.

1963: Ventura County opens the harbor, with Tom Volk as its first director. By 1965, the harbor has 100 boat slips, a fuel dock and a launch ramp.

Late 1960s, early 1970s: Legendary Oxnard developer Martin "Bud" Smith builds Fisherman's Wharf, the Casa Sirena Hotel & Marina and the Lobster Trap Restaurant, which become the harbor's main attractions.

Mid-1970s: The Army Corps of Engineers extends the harbor to the west.

Early 1990s: Many observers now say the harbor fell into disrepair during this period, as Smith retired from the day-to-day management of his properties.

1996: Smith sells his harbor property.

1996: Lyn Krieger hired as Channel Islands Harbor Department director with instructions to lead a rebuilding effort.

2003: The county takes over the leases on Fisherman's Wharf, alleging that the investors who bought them from Smith have neglected the properties. Greystar Real Estate Partners takes the leases for Casa Sirena, the Lobster Trap and the apartments nearby. The developer has since renovated the apartments and proposed replacing the hotel and restaurant.

2004: The former operators of Channel Islands Marina win a breach-of-contract lawsuit against the county and are later awarded $3.5 million. The county's appeal is still pending.

March 2007: The County Board of Supervisors approves an amended master plan for the water-side portion of the harbor, calling for new and renovated marinas. A master plan for the land side is still in progress.

June 2007: Los Angeles developer Edward Czuker agrees to buy the Fisherman's Wharf complex and rebuild it with a mix of stores, restaurants, apartments and a waterfront promenade.