••• On the consent agenda of today’s Historic Landmarks Commission meeting: the conversion of 812 Garden Street (Canon Perdido/De la Guerra) into a hotel, which is news to me but must have been in the works for a while, given that the HLC is being asked for final approval. The plans describe the project thus: “Interior remodel of existing 12,163-square-foot commercial building. Twenty-seven hotel units with kitchenettes and three two-bedroom hotel units with full kitchen. Sleeping mezzanine areas added to second floor. […] Minor exterior improvements only. […] There will be no reception area as these units will be automated check-in per unit.” The owner is Arvand Sabetian, founder of a company called Ziprent; the architect is AB Design Studio.
••• The redesign of the State Street undercrossing—the part under Highway 101 is getting Jeff Sheltonified—appears to be moving forward, as it’s also on the Historic Landmarks Commission’s agenda. The description mentions “the removal of four non-specimen palm trees and two jacarandas,” and the graphic below shows where some of them are.
••• Speaking of Shelton, he finally received his shipment of books, and if you didn’t order a copy of The Fig District, you can purchase one at Chaucer’s Books, Seaside Makers, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, and the Santa Barbara Company. Also, “on Saturday, March 12 at 2 p.m., Jeff will be signing books at the beautiful Lost Horizon Bookstore in Montecito. […] We’ll be bringing tile, fabric and building models as well as copies of the book.”
••• Three more Santa Barbara Bowl shows were announced: something called Rise Against on July 16, the Chicks (formerly of Dixie) on July 29, and a country musician named Jon Pardi on August 5.
••• Chic Santa Ynez General has popped up inside the Tina Frey pop-up—nothing is permanent in this world—in Montecito’s Upper Village.
••• J. pointed out that the “Four Freedoms” murals have been taken down from the Santa Barbara County Human Resources building at 1226 Anacapa Street (Victoria/Figueroa), but when I looked on Google Maps, imagery shows they’ve been gone since at least February 2021. According to an Edhat reader, “This was one of the Summer Youth Mural Projects sponsored by the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. A master artist worked with talented high school art students to design and paint a mural. The project went for several years and the murals ended up in various locations.” A representative for the art museum, meanwhile, said that “the County wanted to take it down and we could not find another home for it at the time.”
••• On Thursday, the city will hold a ribbon-cutting for the Las Positas-Modoc Road Multiuse Path, also known as the LaPoMoMuPa, on March 5. From the release: “The Multiuse Path project included the construction of a 2.6-mile long pathway for bicyclists and pedestrians along Modoc Road, from Calle de Los Amigos to Las Positas Road, and along Las Positas Road from Modoc Road to Cliff Drive.
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In French, it would be Le LaPoMoMuPa, n’est-ce pas?
You’re welcome :)
Bwhaaaaa!
I can’t wait to bike Le LaPoMoMuPa and down Cliff to the FuZo.
Hurray for LaPoMoMuPa, but, my god that took a long time to get done. Now lets run it up Cliff Drive, or ClfDrMuPa
I heard from a local developer that the city is actually incentivizing hotels/Airbnbs over apartments. It’s ridiculous how much focus the city wants to devote to tourism rather than supporting it’s local population. If the city is thriving on the loc front, it will still attract tourists!