John Wiley
By John Wiley
We strolled down “Altered” State Street on this foggy feeling Friday, with far less activity than we’ve seen on KEYT there since the recent traffic closure. Even so we saw happy patrons with sidewalk seating, fresh chalk art, and a few people strolling like us. Nearly all of us wore masks when less than 20′ apart.
It was strange and wonderful to walk down the middle! Occasional cyclists and various personal electrical wheeled vehicles zigged and zagged close past us, leading to musings about physical distancing and pedestrian safety. About then we chanced upon this power huddle of city officials and overheard some thoughtful dialog about how emergency vehicles would best integrate with this new mode of downtown. One topic was how a SBFD ladder truck would navigate among the moving and seated people where cars used to reign.
Once the novelty of this has worn off, State Street will revert to the ghost town it has become famous for. The difference is that cars can no longer drive down the street to see anything of interests. The tourists are gonna love that… I’m glad that the City is going to do nothing on the potential permanent closure until September. This is a terrible, TERRIBLE idea, and hopefully the rah-rah enthusiasm for this abortion will have completely petered out by then.
By the end of summer, if restaurants last that long, most will file for bankruptcy and close. The only thing the city is doing by opening up State Street is giving the restaurant and bar owners a few good months. They make the most money during the summer. The city makes the most revenue during the summer. In exchange for revenue the city is allowing the coronavirus to spread into the community. If any of you go downtown late in the afternoon on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, you’ll see what the rest of us already know. The tourists are back, without masks, mingling too closely with everyone. Remember, asymptomatic carriers represent about 50% of those who have the virus. It just takes one person to be a super spreader. Our numbers are already on the incline and they will begin to rise sharply. Remember, the terrorists are back enforce on the weekends. Oh, and we just had some major marches around the county. Exactly how many of those individuals didn’t wear masks and got too close to someone else?
I’m with Rex on the inevitable outcome of this experiment. To me, the only solution for State Street’s survival is to permit housing on the second floor of every property. To keep State Street alive there has to be residents of the street that care for it, not just shop and restaurant owners.
Corona will be gone by Sept.
Good grief, we live in a tourist hub. We need tourists. The demise of State Street has been in motion for decades. Mature planners look five and ten years down the road…
lol!!!
what a sad state the world is in due to this virus. the only one who ‘appears’ to be thriving is china. but they’re probably putting up a front as usual. bold prediction: the fallout, international lawsuits, and blame-game from in the coronavirus aftermath is the catalyst for WW3
If this is such a “terrible, terrible idea”, what’s yours? I think it is an excellent idea but it’s bare bones; there needs more to it. There needs to be small businesses (and large) to attract people, offering goods but also personal service. — And that depends a lot, near totally on the property owners wanting to attract businesses and making them affordable. If they sit back preferring to demand the rent they believe they’re owed, then, indeed, it won’t work and we’ll return to a vehicle-devoted street, abutted by buildings that have been turned into high end rentals and condos, with a lot of bars and restaurants to provide low income jobs for those who live on the west and east sides of town, catering to the wealthy. And Santa Barbara will lose not only its tourist business, except for those wanting to hang out at the beach, but its soul.
Like the idea of second-story housing, but how do we keep it affordable for locals and out of the hands of profiteers? Plus, there’s the matter of parking. Complicated issue.
I absolutely cannot believe that the proponents of this terrible idea are overlooking one major fact. This fact is so important that I’m going to spell it out in capital letters: STATE STREET IS UNIQUE IN THAT IT’S THE ONLY MAIN STREET IN TOWN!!! Unlike most cities, there are NO alternative shopping streets. People like to drive up and down State Street to see what’s there. Without this ability, it’s a completely unknown factor. Especially for out-of-town visitors. I’m not even going to go into detail about how the “alternate” driving streets (Anacapa and Chapala) are going to be forever f****d up as a result of this nonsense. That’s a foregone. In the very few days that this abortion has been in place, it’s skidded off the chart. STOP IT NOW. Of all the dumb ideas that have been proposed over the years, this is by far the dumbest. I actually like the idea of residential housing on the second floors of existing businesses. That makes complete sense . Just revert State Street to WHAT IT WAS INTENDED, a street for motor vehicles.
Rex, There are those of us who have suggested closing State St. for decades. Look at Florence, Lucca, and many other European cities. State St. has been dying for years, even before the Funk Zone took over. Look at towns with a vibrant downtown. Do they have a 15 block long downtown? No, it’s about six blocks square. In today’s world of internet shopping, people want something quaint with different local shops on a walkable area, not a 15 block street to cruise. I was talking to a 16 year old girl the other day and she said “Now they need carts with jewelry and other gift items”. Out of the mouths of babes….
Did the City fix the reason why businesses on State were suffering in the first place?
Or is this a bandaid to quiet people/businesses?
The people have been suggesting this idea for well over a decade, heck I think since the traffic lights were removed off the 101.
Let’s wait & see, give change a chance.
Although this change has a hard start with the Covid procedures in place & fewer tourists.
I agree, 11:27. This has been too long in coming. We don’t even have to look to European cities to see evidence. The Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica is a good example. When I was a kid growing up there, it was a thriving pedestrian mall (in fact, called “the mall”). At one point, someone got the idea that it should be open to vehicle traffic. All of the brick and concrete was removed and replaced with asphalt curbs and sidewalks. It didn’t take so long before it was determined that businesses were no longer thriving. So, they closed it to vehicle traffic again, and it’s once more a quaint and thriving section of downtown. And I like the idea of carts!
We need push the homeless out of there if we want a viable downtown.
This is truth.
Shoppers and tourists aren’t coming to see the drunken pants psssrs.
Maybe Santa Barbara will revert to what it once was before it evolved into a pretentious border town for Angelenos.
If State Street is dying, it is not due to the virus. It is due to greedy landlords who would rather have their State Street properties vacant than to rent to business owners for a reasonable rate. This was going on long before the virus arrived.
Sept?? It was supposed to be gone by Easter. Cpl. Bone Spurs said so himself.
What the city can do @10:08 is put in place ordinances that encourage the building of rental units and remove barriers for their construction. Every regulation put in place increases the cost of construction, which in turn increases the amount of revenue needed to make a project profitable, and if a project isn’t profitable no one will build it.
Is is possible to build profitable units that are also affordable? I suspect not, not in downtown SB, even if regulations and permit fees were slashed. We do need to look at our permit fees—they are really high, and there are so many of them.
Buckwheat, I strongly recommend you take some economic and basic business courses. There are many available at SBCC. How long do you think your favorite restaurant would be in businesses if it sold you food for less than the cost to bring it to your table (which includes food costs, labor cost, utilities, even long term expenses like improvements to the kitchen, decor upgrades, staff training, marketing, credit card fees, etc.) ? Landlords have to make long term decisions like how they’re going to replace the roof in a couple of years or how they’re going to pay for the new fire sprinklers required with a new tenant or the installation of a new ADA restroom when something as simple as moving a counter can trigger and arduous permitting process with numerous code compliance. Calling out “greedy landlords”is a cop out for someone who doesn’t understand economics while refusing to do any research.
The fee charged by the city for an HLC review (historic landmark commission, which covers all of downtown) is about $500 per unit. That is just the per unit fee for an HLC review, it does not include the cost to prepare the special set of plans for HLC, the construction documents, nor any other city building/traffic impact/permit/you name it fee imposed by the city and building department. That is $500 per rental unit, not per property, for a group of volunteers to critique the exterior appearance of the development. That $500 needs to be paid for in future rents.
I hope you are wrong because I really enjoy State Street when it is closed. In fact, I’m thinking of going back downtown for the 1st time in years because of it. It’s like having a parade Every Day! You know how we LOVE our Parades!