••• “Yardi Systems is negotiating with the City of Santa Barbara to move its headquarters downtown to the long-closed former Macy’s building in Paseo Nuevo. […] While Yardi’s proposal does not include any housing, City Administrator Kelly McAdoo said the city is also negotiating with the owners of the former Nordstrom building at the opposite corner of the open-air mall to turn that building into housing. Irvine-based Shopoff Realty Investments has applied under the city’s new adaptive reuse ordinance to convert the three-story former Nordstrom department store into 112 housing units of various sizes at the corner of Chapala Street and W. Canon Perdido.” —Noozhawk
••• According to an Eater roundup of restaurants opening in Santa Barbara, the Four Seasons Biltmore resort won’t reopen till late 2026 at the earliest.
••• “The Neighborhood Advisory Council approved a motion to recommend several options to Santa Barbara City Council in renaming Calle Cesar Chavez [with] Calle Si Se Puede as the primary option. Alternate suggestions, with equal weight, are Calle Dolores Huerta and a Chumash name to be determined after planning staff conduct outreach with the local tribe.” Why not just call it S. Salsipuedes? —Santa Barbara News-Press
••• “Santa Barbara Zoo housing idea snarls plans for bridge over Highway 101, connecting Eastside to waterfront [….] The pedestrian and bike bridge would cross over Highway 101 and connect Eastside residents to the waterfront.” Surely it’s possible to have both. —Santa Barbara News-Press
••• “The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday voted to allow staff to begin negotiations for workforce housing at the site of the old probation building at 117 E. Carrillo Street in Santa Barbara. The top plan proposes 104 [modular] housing units. […] Modular units are prefabricated apartments built at a different location and transported to the site.” Here’s hoping the county doesn’t get a pass on the architecture; the other buildings on the Instagram page of Sola Impact, the developer, do not inspire confidence. —Noozhawk
••• “Modoc Multi-Use Path Opens New Route Between Santa Barbara, Isla Vista [….] The new 1.1-mile path is for bicyclists, skaters and pedestrians. The path along Modoc Road begins at Calle De Los Amigos, where it connects to the path constructed by the City of Santa Barbara, and connects to the Obern Trail Bike Path across from Encore Drive.” —Noozhawk
••• Two speed limit changes will be happening: the non-commercial part of Santa Claus Lane will go from 55 mph to 30 mph, and San Antonio Creek Road will go from 40 mph to 35 mph. —Noozhawk
••• “Target’s next-day delivery service is now available to Santa Barbara residents. The service will let shoppers purchase up to 85% of the store’s total products at home and have them delivered by the next day if the order is placed by 6 p.m.” It’s free for orders over $35. —Noozhawk
••• A New York Times roundup about Ojai, in which four locals share recommendations, mainly includes the usual suspects. But these two, from Eric Goode of Hotel El Roblar and the Turtle Conservancy, were news to me:
For Hotel El Roblar, I bought almost all the art in the rooms and public spaces from California Auctioneers, this family-run auction house in Casitas Springs, a tiny town south of Ojai. I’ve been buying from them for over 20 years. They have an auction every few months, almost always on a Sunday. I also bought a lot from Early California Antiques. The owner, Eric Berg, used to have a store on State Street in Santa Barbara, and now he has everything stored in this industrial park in Oxnard. You can’t make a shopping list, because you’ll come upon something you never imagined you’d buy, like incredible Mexican candelabra and 1930s ceramic planters. He also has a concession on Ojai Avenue right across the street from Hotel El Roblar.
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I noticed Los Agaves Restaurant on Milpas was closed during dinner hours and had brown paper covering the window. Do you know why.
Thanks
“Closed this week due to upkeep maintenance,” according to an Instagram post. It’s due to reopen on Monday.
Didn’t Yardi propose to covert a third of their campus into employee housing back in ’23? Did that happen? I remember they were being told it would need to be re zoned to happen. They were doing that because such a large portion of their employees were no longer required in office. Maybe this gives them a much cheaper lease option (since city is desperate to fill the space, which is taxpayers dime) takes away housing and affordable housing that was being proposed, and then Yardi can covert their entire campus into housing, get subsidized and make a few milly or more? I love the idea of more employees downtown, as that truly drives downtown economy, not residents…but they won’t be bringing the numbers they claim. They sound just like Amazon when they were moving in…and they planned to cash in on their own cafe and take business away from downtown business owners 😆 now that building is for sale and those offices are an echo chamber. Sounds more like it’s good for Yardi and bad for SB taxpayers and SB business owners. Wolf in Sheep’s clothing imo
You’re under the erroneous assumption Macy’s could actually be housing. It can’t, the potential developer and current leaseholder need the city to give them the land for free for the project to pencil. They city didn’t, as they shouldn’t have just given it away, so now an office is a much better option than a very large vacancy. All you armchair city planners have zero idea how hard and expensive it actually is to build housing in Santa Barbara. Even most of the planning commission is economically illiterate.