To your point…The health of the businesses on State street, and the value of enhancing State street are linked. One is not going to be effective without the other.
I’d appreciate seeing equal effort and focus (or communication) about plans to make it easier for business owners to open and run successful businesses on State street, and in Santa Barbara as a whole. Especially because this planned State Street investment won’t work without the right businesses in place.
“… groups of Adirondack chairs…”, lol, seriously? SB has become an absurd suburb for some of the most excessively clownish transplants. If people wanted promenades and Adirondack chairs, they’d travel to Italy or Vermont, or whatever. This is Santa Barbara, she’s always been special - which is why people used to come here, and spend their money. Some powerful clown, or 2, has moved in and imposed their clownish designs on our beautiful city. Despite the nearly universal objections of Santa Barbara’s actual long time residents/natives. If you don’t like our, “ fake Spanish veneer”, or the, “shodden with red tile and botox” of our architecture, then you’re in the wrong place. Because that IS Santa Barbara. Go to Ventura or Fresno, if you want to build that hideous box of a building, please, and leave our Santa Barbara alone.
Your next to the last paragraph is ????????????.
If you speak to local businesses on State Street, the permanent closure has been a death sentence. The workings of City Hall towards business and property owners must be fixed first, every other conversation is secondary. Paseo Nuevo is at the heart of our City and also needs immediate attention. If we don’t get our act together soon, one of the nations most beautiful streets will be unfixable. Thank you for highlighting this.
State Street needs to get back to it's old self. Forget about parklets.
It's not bestucco'd and dripping with fake Spanish veneer, you're right about that! I love it.
Haters Back Off! This is a beautiful example of public-private partnership, commitment to ending homelessness, humanizing our unhoused neighbors, and it looks good too. You don't have to be shodden with red tile and botox to be beautiful, Barbarinos.
Who knew Jewish delis were like London buses, you wait forever and then two show up at once.
Nick the Greek is a great addition also and a huge upgrade from Natural Cafe, i.e. food with actual flavor.
It has the feeling of a prison.
The whole Pueblo Pollo saga is pretty hilarious. It of course used to be a Pollo Loco, but they somehow got kicked out of the franchise for running afoul of standards. What you need to do to get kicked out of an El Pollo Loco franchise? I can only imagine. The posters on the wall had simply been taped over wherever the El Pollo Loco logo and branding appeared. I ate there once out of pure curiosity, and all I can say about it was that I was hungry before I ate their burrito, and not hungry after. That's the nicest thing I can say about that.
Welcome to the new Santa Barbara where city officials just don't get it. This is not my Santa Barbara.
I agree, one of the very ugliest "new" buildings I've seen in quite a while.
Another month, another few million flushed down the State St. gutter. Why so many continue to try and crack an uncrackable nut and open a restaurant on State St is a mystery. The street is littered with the corpses of broken dreams and lost savings. Reminds me of the old joke "How do you make a small fortune in the restaurant business? Start with a large fortune."
The Vera Cruz Village building is just awful. Why is the City allowing this type of architecture in our beautiful city!
It's a housing development called the Santa Barbara Polo Villas: https://www.sitelinesb.com/santa-ynez-general-has-more-than-doubled-in-size/
That is a bold claim. Care to substantiate it?
Do you happen to know what’s going on at the polo field? Lots of construction and it looks like they knocked down some of the older house on the property
Gentrification at its finest.
2023 Google Maps blur out vehicle license plates.
CITY ADMINISTRATOR, if a good one, can transform a town like nothing else. Where, oh where is CAMILLE BARNETT who transformed the city of Dallas in the 80s and was called upon to iron out the mess of Washington DC when Marion Barry had to resign. Camille is a graduate of UCSB. It’s worth a try to lure her back to town. Her motto: ‘Commitment To Excellence’. Who doesn’t love that?
HOMER leather goods are divine. Hand-stitched heirloom quality leather goods are back. No stamped vinyl coated Egyptian cotton canvas for comical prices there. Very pleased with my purchases that get better with use. I’m a fan.
This news is alarming to some- but the tourism folks score gold while the locals try to stop a permitted housing development by hiring a biologist to say “rain make mud”. Great article!
Mission Refill sounds amazing! Thank you! Make Santa Barbara Plastic Free!!
Lane Farms?
Tri-County Produce?
Wonderful story, thanks for sharing!
