After Years of Planning, Work to Revitalize Downtown Santa Maria is Finally Happening
Dave Alley
SANTA MARIA, Calif. (KEYT) – The long-running effort to revitalize downtown Santa Maria is finally taking place.
City leaders have been working to bring a restored vibrancy to the downtown area around the busy intersection of Broadway and Main Street for decades.
Now, with a handful of residential and commercial developments either in construction or soon to be on-the-way, Santa Maria is now beginning the process that stakeholders believe will dramatically remake and reimagine the important downtown core.
“This is absolutely a transformational point in our downtown revitalization efforts,” said Chenin Dow, Santa Maria Community Development Director. “This really has the capability of transforming our downtown in a new and different way, to really be what our community needs for the next generation of Santa Maria.
Ten years ago, Santa Maria adopted its Downtown Specific Plan, a document created to establish its vision, regulations, and guidelines to revitalize, beautify, and redevelop the downtown area. Santa Maria leaders use the Specific Plan essentially as a road map to focus its efforts, attract investment and be a catalyst for improvement.
“The Downtown Specific Plan was first adopted back in 2015, but these last few months we’ve really started to see the rubber meets the road in terms of projects coming out of the ground,” said Dow. “We are looking to build over 1,000 units of housing within the downtown core. There’s more than 130,000 square feet of commercial being developed or redeveloped.”
The first major development project in the downtown area is already complete, The Gateway mixed-used development on the northwest corner of Broadway and Main Street.
Located at the site of a former stereo store, the three-story building includes the now open Efren’s Mexican Restaurant on the bottom floor, and housing units on the top floors.
Within the past few weeks, construction began on the redevelopment of the former Falla’s/Mervyn’s building in the Santa Maria Town Center West shopping center.
Santa Barbara-based developer The Vernon Group has been working for five years on the project that will transform the long-vacant two-story 85,000 square foot building into a 104-unit residential complex called Heritage Walk Lofts.
A groundbreaking ceremony was held in early August and now construction crews can been seen working on the well-known building on a daily basis.
Heritage Walk Lofts is the first in a series of other major developments The Vernon Group has planned for the downtown area.
Other projects The Vernon Group is working includes the proposed Perlman Apartments on the northeast corner of Broadway and Main Street and right across the street on the southeast corner, the Alvin Newton Apartments.
Both of the those two developments are planned to be six-story structures and have been approved byte Santa Maria City Council.
The Perlman building is set to be an affordable housing complex with about 250 unites and the Alvin Newton building to have a mixed-use concept that includes under 100 units.
The Vernon Group also has two other longer term projects in the works in the area, including what is known as “Lot 1,” the site of the former Boot Barn, and “Lot 4,” which is property located just north of the Heritage Walk Lofts.
Should all of these projects come to fruition, downtown Santa Maria will look and feel much different than it does today.
It’s a complete evolution,” said Suzanne Singh, Santa Maria Valley Chamber Vice President of Economic Development and Government Affairs. “We’re shifting to what the younger generation wants. I think we’re moving to what our younger generation is looking for, which is revitalized downtowns where they can live in high rise apartments, go down, get their coffee, do their shopping, all that right where they live, and so I think we’re listening to that younger generation and we’re trying to accommodate them, in addition to making Santa Maria look awesome.”
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