Ambitious Evergreen Village project takes root in Santa Maria
Evergreen Village is the latest addition to Santa Maria’s portfolio of ambitious projects. The 52,421-square-foot center, which will be located along Highway 135 between Santa Maria and Orcutt, will replace the 50-year-old Evergreen Center with five new office and retail buildings. The development broke ground on its first phase in November and is well under Read More →
Arnold rushes to salvage his eco-devo legacy
As a person who’s only seen Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger from behind the ropes at press conferences up and down the Tri-Counties, I’ve lost my ability to connect with his charm. He now strikes me as a particularly hollow political figure. He’s pretending to ride off into the sunset in a blaze of glory. But what Read More →
$10M State Street Borders deal is a bright spot in a dull market
The $10 million sale of 900 State St. in Santa Barbara makes for the largest retail real estate deal in the city in more than two years, but the outlook for the South Coast’s commercial real estate market remains shaky. The 38,000-square-foot retail space where Borders bookstore is housed was sold on April 5 to Read More →
Novel plan may speed green building
A new way of financing energy efficiency upgrades in buildings is gathering steam across Santa Barbara County and headed for a vote by supervisors on April 13. Called emPowerSBC, the program allows property owners to borrow money from a funding pool set up by the county, install upgrades such as solar and pay off the Read More →
Recovery may mean the old is new again
Meet the new economy. Same as the old economy. It may just be that the rest of the country looks a lot more like the Tri-Counties as we bid farewell to the Great Recession. By that I mean slow growth, more government, a wider gap between haves and have-nots and a financial system that Read More →
Rice Mercado Depot project leads Santa Maria
In keeping with its push towards mixed-use, Santa Maria has plans in the works for a six-acre commercial, residential and manufacturing site at the northwest corner of Depot Street and Morrison Avenue. Developers say the ambitious Rice Depot Mercado project will be a mixed-use hub, drawing pedestrian residential traffic from the densely populated area around Read More →
Economists: coastal regions better than inland, but state faces exodus
Inland and coastal California might as well be two different worlds — at least that’s the view of California Lutheran University real estate economist Kirk Lesh. Lesh and the rest of CLU’s forecasting team presented their first economic prophecies for the new year at a March 24 event at the Thousand Oaks campus. Lesh Read More →
