lauren
By Lauren Bray, edhat staff
In our latest local business news, the Boy Scouts of America have put up their Modoc property for sale, a local shop is offering free holiday ornaments, and more.
Let’s dive in.
Boy Scouts Put Up Modoc Headquarters for Sale
Near the intersection of Las Palmas Drive and Modoc Road sits a 4,300 square foot building nestled among greenery with a regal looking sign showing an eagle crest and reading the “Los Padres Council Boy Scouts of America.”
This pink-hued building at 4000 Modoc Road can be yours for $2.15 million, according to Radius Commercial Real Estate.
The building serves as the Boy Scouts main administrative office and includes several meeting spaces and private offices, as well as a GTE mobilenet cell site that leases a portion of the property for $1,925 per month.
“Boy Scouts of America can vacate the building for a user or welcome an opportunity to lease back approximately 50% of the building for continued operations,” the listing reads.
Local Company Giving Away Holiday Ornaments
The Devil & The Deep Blue Sea gift shop is giving away free holiday ornaments now through Christmas! No purchase is necessary, all you have to do is mention seeing this notice in edhat and boom, ornament time.
They’re located at 219 Stearns Wharf and also have a bunch of other gifts for the holidays including treats by Santa Barbara Pistachio Company and Chocolats du Calibressan.
The store is open seven days a week from 10:00 a.m to sunset. Call with questions at 805-962-0715
No Fun For Downtown, Aloha Fun Center Backs Out
The former home of Macy’s has sat empty for several years on the corner of Ortega and State Streets in Santa Barbara (file photo)
Last December we reported the building that housed a Macy’s department store in downtown Santa Barbara’s Paseo Nuevo mall would become a “fun center” with a roller rink, laser tag, and arcade.
The Aloha Fun Center leased the ground floor of the building at 701 State Street while the second and third-floor spaces were still available to rent.
Well it looks like this building wasn’t fun enough as the Independent reported the Aloha Fun Center pulled out due to “multiple snags in the development process” with the owners letting their lease expire.
Reportedly there were issues adjusting the building for increased occupancy, adding more bathrroms, and building code issues.
Hayes Commercial Group dubs the space the “Ortega Building” and currently is advertising all three floors available for lease.
Iconic Victor the Florist Signs Come Down
Photo: JT Real Estate
The signs are now gone at the former Victor the Florist’s standout pink building on the corner of E. Anapamu and Santa Barbara Streets in downtown Santa Barbara.
JT Real Estate is leasing the 1,600 square foot building for just under $5,000 per month and it’s still available.
Castillo Inn on the Market for $9.25M
(courtesy photo)
The Castillo Inn in Santa Barbara’s West Beach neighborhood is up for sale for a cool $9,250,000.
The 21-room motel is over 9,000 square feet on a 19,600 square foot parcel with 21 parking spaces, located just a block from Cabrillo Blvd, Santa Barbara Harbor, and West Beach.
The listing from Radius Commercial Real Estate estimates an annual revenue of $440,476 per key and estimated income which includes a manager’s suite rented nightly with updated property taxes and FF&E reserves, according to the listing.
New Children’s Boutique Opens in Goleta
(courtesy photo)
A new children’s clothing and toy store has opened in Goleta’s Storke Plaza. Beach Baby Kids Boutique is located at 270 Storke Road next to Rusty’s Pizza.
The store is owned by local moms Trudie Lopez and Andrea Herz who are passionate about children, families, and quality shopping experiences.
“We focus on a friendly atmosphere in the store with chairs for people to wait in while their spouses walk around, a children’s toy and relaxation area to decompress and stay busy while their parents shopped, and friendly staff who enjoy that one-on-one shopping experience,” the owners stated.
New Cannabis Dispensary Opens in Isla Vista
(courtesy photo)
Farmacy Isla Vista, operated by Glass House Brands, is scheduled to host its grand opening on Thursday at 6555 Pardall Road starting at 10:00 a.m. through 2:00 p.m.
The cannabis supplier will host a ribbon cutting, live entertainment, complimentary food, and free swag bags.
The new 1,025 square foot store will offer premium cannabis flower, vaporizers, edibles, concentrates and more.
Would you like to highlight your local business news? Email us at info@edhat.com
Perhaps it’s being saved as a warming & cooling & rec center, dorms or food hand-outs and showers for our no-room-tax tourists?
The City and building department have a lot of discretion, which they choose not use. I have personally worked on a project that would have significantly improved the code compliance of an existing structure, trash enclosure, and parking area, but the city demanded 100 % compliance, which wasn’t feasible as several necessary parking spaces would be lost. End result – nothing was done, no improvements or additional code upgrades were completed. The city needs allow for incremental upgrades / improvements to many of our older buildings in town, but they don’t, they push for maximum compliance, they even try to expand the scope beyond the proposed area, and the intended consequence is a significant impediment to any redevelopment and the loss of business and opportunities that would benefit the community like the Aloha Fun Center.
I once bought a building that had a business in it and wanted to move my business to it. I was told by the Building Department (verbally, not in writing I regret to say) that it was a commercial lot and good to go for my use. I was not savvy enough to know the building itself was coded residential and had never been brought up to ADA standards. After a year of grief it became obvious it could never be made ADA compliant to satisfy the City (or State), the requirements for handicapped parking and a ramp were impossible to implement. I gave up and resold it as a residence, losing a lot of money. There is a business in it now. As far as I can tell it was never made compliant, since they were requiring a destruction of a sloping front yard made into a long reversing ramp. When I read now about developers abandoning projects after months or years of negotiations with the City bureaucrats I now have remorseful insight. I certainly don’t begrudge anyone access, but the permitting process is so arduous and so non “transparent” that anyone attempting to renovate a building or to build in this city had better have a very savvy land use lawyer guiding them.
Accurate and common occurrence Lucky.
She [Aloha Fun Center] was unprepared for Santa Barbara’s red tape.
“When you go in to do a change of use, they call it, it triggers all these new codes; it can be fire sprinklers, it can be more bathrooms, and so the costs just go higher and higher,” said Jason Jaeger, a local commercial real estate broker. Yet the city has discretion to phase in these requirements overtime. While I can see being strict on the fire life safety items, the bathroom requirement can be waived. For example, all these expansive parklets on State filled with tables and chairs – the city didn’t require a single additional bathroom to be installed even though ‘State code’ dictated they should. The city waived the restroom requirement in the case of the parklets, and could have, should have, done the same with Aloha. https://www.independent.com/2022/12/15/the-state-of-play-at-santa-barbaras-paseo-nuevo-mall/