A Hint About UCSB’s Plan for State Street

••• A few items of note from Radius Commercial Real Estate’s Q2 report…. 1) Force Performance (“we empower athletes across all levels—from amateurs to professionals—through personalized training, injury rehabilitation, and performance optimization”) has taken Motion Training Collective’s former space at 918 Chapala Street. 2) “Friendship Manor, a nonprofit provider of affordable senior housing in Isla Vista, recently acquired the previously entitled site [701 N. Milpas Street, approved for an 82-unit mixed-use residential development that includes 16 moderate-income affordable units] and is expected to relocate its Isla Vista senior housing community there, although future development plans have not been publicly announced.” It’s at the corner of Ortega Street. 3) There are two mentions of UCSB turning 410 State Street (above, between Haley and Gutierrez) into an “Innovation Center,” but the school demurs, saying that “The University is currently exploring multiple uses for the property through a process that includes community and campus stakeholders. No decisions have been made.” Nonetheless, I’d wager that it’s a hint of what’s to come.

••• On the southbound Highway 101, C. noticed a “Montecito: next 3 exits” sign south of the Olive Mill Road exit—which would put Summerland’s Lillie Avenue (along with San Ysidro Road and Sheffield Road) in Montecito. I ran the matter by the folks overseeing the construction, who said the sign was supposed to say “next exit”—as the previous one in that spot did—and is now in the process of being replaced. The nitpicker in me thinks it should say “next 2 exits,” but whatever. P.S. Taking this photo from the Olive Mill on-ramp was the dumbest thing I’ve done in a long time.

••• The bad news is that both Santa Barbara Airport escalators broke down yet again. The good news is that one has been fixed; as for the other, “the replacement gearbox needed for repairs is expected to arrive in late August. Once the part arrives, we’ll proceed with the repairs and get the escalator back up and running.” But for how long? Seems like a Polymarket opportunity.

••• The U.S. Forest Service finally allowed the Montecito Trails Foundation “to begin the first phase of restoration on Old Romero Road [which] will restore nearly 4.8 miles of trail that has been under public health and safety closure due to storm damage since January of 2023. The Los Padres Forest Association trail crew will be starting work for us as soon as the weather cooperates, as early as this week, with the goal of a late September reopening. […] A second, more comprehensive phase is still to come—this next phase will be scoped and put out to bid by the Forest Service, funded separately through Forest Service Thomas Fire recovery dollars.”

••• Three years ago, I ran a post about possible changes coming to Los Alamos, including a 59-unit housing development that’s coming to fruition, and a café and cannabis shop that remain unrealized. Still in the works: the hotel proposed for the vacant lot (465 Bell Street) between the Alamo Motel and the post office. At the time, the plan was for a “three-story hotel, restaurant and gourmet hall” called The Cottonwood (“los alamos” translates to “the cottonwoods” in English). “The first floor will house the gourmet hall of 15,923 square feet, the second and third floors will have 28 units.” The food hall has been scrapped, and the project goes before the county’s North Board of Architectural Review this Thursday, July 31. The agenda describes it as “a new 46,008 gross square foot commercial development consisting of two three-story buildings for hotel, restaurant, and general retail use.” The south building will have “a restaurant with a wine and beer bar, a general retail space, and a hotel lobby, offices and conference room” on the ground floor, and eight guest rooms on both the second and third floors. The north building will have back-of-house spaces on the ground floor, and seven guest rooms on both the second and third floors, for a total of 30 hotel rooms. I don’t know whether The Cottonwood’s website is accurate, but it says the restaurant will be “fast casual” and promises a “tiny museum” somewhere on the property.

••• Our San Francisco hotel quest led my husband and me to The Huntington Hotel, which reopened in March after being closed since Covid and given a renovation. The building atop Nob Hill is rich with curb appeal, and designer Ken Fulk’s rethinking of the interiors has pockets of drama in the public areas…

…and somewhat generic guest rooms. They were pleasant enough, but aside from the view of Huntington Park, we could’ve been anywhere, which is not ideal for $1,000 per night (we reserved a corner king room and got upgraded to a junior suite). You could see where money was not spent—nicks in the baseboards were visible under the new paint, and the walls weren’t skim-coated, or at least not well. (Our friends’ room had nowhere to sit besides the bed. The staff said desks were in the process of being made and offered to send up a chair.) On the plus side: even though our room was across from the elevators, we never heard a peep from inside or out; the windows opened, including the one in the shower; and the free Recchiuti “butterscotch caramel batons,” with a hint of blackstrap molasses, are now on my Christmas list.

Less appealing was the LED in the main light switch, so bright it illuminated the entire room. Even two Band-Aids couldn’t dim it.

We probably should’ve had a drink at The Big Four, the longstanding restaurant inside the hotel, but I wanted to try the new cocktail bar, Arabella’s. Reservations are required, and securing one was like pulling teeth: I had to email the concierge, then the majordomo, then the curator, then the front desk. The room was too loud, thanks to a large party near us, but the service was great, the crowd was dressed-up in a way (blazers!) you don’t see so much outside Carmel, and I got into a staring contest with the bar’s eponym, Arabella Duval Huntington, “Collis P. Huntington’s colorful second wife [who was] born into Southern poverty and with a life often shrouded in intrigue and tinted by tongue-wagging, she rose to become one of the most fascinating and formidable figures (not to mention the wealthiest American woman) of her era.”

I’m not dedicating a whole post to the trip because we didn’t do all that much—walked around Russian Hill and Pacific Heights, went to an open house (you never know), visited one of the most uptight coffee shops ever, bought Kolo slippers at Topdrawer, spotted a couple of Zoox robotaxis, and ate a fantastic Moroccan-inspired dinner at Aziza. Given the hotel’s hilltop location, I was grateful for its policy of giving each guest a cable car pass. I haven’t ridden a cable car since I was 10 years old, but the pass came in handy as we headed back at the end of a long day. The San Francisco hotel quest continues, and that’s fine by me, because it means we keep getting to use new parts of the city as a home base. But I still wish Firmdale Hotels would expand to San Francisco.

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