A fast on-line seek for resorts in Santa Barbara yields greater than 100 outcomes, and this fiscal yr, the Transient Occupancy Tax collected from these resorts is predicted to succeed in $30.8 million — 9 % greater than anticipated. In 2022, Go to Santa Barbara reported that the typical value of a resort room jumped by greater than 40 % since 2019.
Merely put, the resort enterprise is booming.
However on the identical time, the town is struggling to satisfy the housing wants of its residents, and apart from a couple of builders keen to supply a small portion of their items as inexpensive housing, the town is seeing a wave of resorts proposed by builders trying to make a faster return on their investments. Within the downtown space particularly, from Mission Road all the way in which to the Funk Zone, resort builders are leaping on the probability to money in on the tourism business.
The Excessive-Tech Lodge Guru
One of many builders leaping in with each ft is Bay Space–primarily based Arvand Sabetian, who constructed his fortune when he bought his first firm, Arvixe — which he based when he was only a junior in highschool — for $22 million in 2014. A number of years later, he was featured in Inc.com’s “30 Beneath 30” listing, and now, he’s overseeing not less than six boutique resort tasks with a complete of 155 rooms within the downtown Santa Barbara space.
Sabetian’s first firm specialised in distant work, even earlier than the pandemic made working from dwelling the cultural norm. Arvixe centered totally on customer support, and Sabetian saved the identical thought along with his new firm, Ziprent, a distant property administration service that permits landlords to outsource the day-to-day administration of tenants and properties. Based on the Ziprent web site, the corporate has managed greater than 2,600 items in additional than 320 cities, processing not less than $180 million value of lease since 2019.
Utilizing the identical mannequin, Sabetian entered the boutique resort market right here in Santa Barbara, testing out a self-check-in system — with no foyer, no concierge, and no room service — beginning with the six-unit Casa Valerio and 13-unit Casa Jardin.
The 2 smaller-scale resorts labored like a allure (a one-bed unit at Casa Jardin, priced as excessive as $700 per evening, is totally booked by way of the primary week of September), however when Sabetian put in a proposal for a 30-unit self-check-in resort at 812 Backyard Road, it caught the eye of neighbors who nervous that the unmanaged resort would trigger noise and safety points for the tenants on the Laguna Cottages for Seniors throughout the road. With no in a single day workers, they felt that the resort may very well be rife with events and crime.
In an interview with the Impartial, Sabetian mentioned he didn’t fairly perceive why individuals had been so upset over the prospect of a self-check-in course of. “Each resort that I do know of has a self-check-in,” he mentioned. “Are we going to return in time or not?”
The resort at 812 Backyard, he mentioned, can be simply as secure because the Casa Jardin and Casa Valerio properties, and would solely add to the worth and character of the neighborhood. Earlier than he bought the 12,000-square-foot constructing, it was an empty workplace constructing that he mentioned welcomed extra squatters and transients than would ever be at his resorts. None of his present properties, he added, has had any safety points as a result of self-check-in system.
Regardless of the pushback, the challenge received the approval of the Historic Landmarks Fee (HLC), as did a 15-unit resort at 513 De la Vina Road submitted by Sabetian and AB Design Studio in 2020, which, after a number of revisions, acquired full approval final yr.
Going Even Larger
With each tasks now transferring ahead, Sabetian and AB Design Studio are turning their consideration towards two extra formidable tasks inside only a few blocks of one another: a 73-room resort proposed at a former three-building medical workplace property at 1919 State Road and a 37-room resort proposed on the historic First Christian Church at 1915 Chapala Road.
On July 19, each tasks got here throughout the HLC for the newest rounds of feedback and challenge design approval.
The church property, which is listed on the town’s Historic Sources Stock, was constructed in 1924 and was upgraded in 1957 to its present Mediterranean model. The enduring pink church was bought in June for $5.3 million, based on a Barton Actual Property group itemizing. Neighbors acquired a metropolis discover that Sabetian was planning on changing the church, reworking the inside, and reducing out a bit of the roof to create a central courtyard. The church’s 171-space parking zone, based on the plans, might be lowered to 41 areas — the minimal required by the town’s zoning codes.
The State Road 73-room resort challenge proposal additionally contains including a fourth ground and roof deck. Commissioners voted 8-1 in favor of it, saying that the proposed design stayed devoted to the unique property and saved modifications to a minimal. However Commissioner Ed Lenvik, the lone “no” vote, questioned “a variety of facets,” together with the rooftop deck, which has grow to be a preferred function amongst new resort tasks within the metropolis. (The previous Perpetually 21 constructing on State Road, additionally proposed as a resort conversion, contains plans for a rooftop deck.)
“I personally don’t purchase into all of that roof getting used for out of doors use,” Lenvik mentioned. “I received’t settle for that for Santa Barbara. I’m actually disenchanted in all of the roofs we see now getting used.”
Whereas the 2 greatest tasks gained HLC approval, each nonetheless should win over the planning fee and the town council, the place there may very well be larger resistance as a result of stress for the town to push for much-needed housing.
However based on Sabetian, the modifications wanted to supply long-term housing would have been “too extreme” to pursue, and a conversion to a resort was a lot simpler and may very well be finished with minor alterations.
Dropping the Funk?
Sabetian’s six boutique resorts have cruised by way of the overview course of partially attributable to the truth that all of them have been finished with minimal alterations, and can match the Spanish Colonial model of El Pueblo Viejo District.
However one other challenge is taking a much less delicate strategy. Longtime land proprietor Invoice Wright plans a 250-room behemoth on the nook of Backyard and Yanonali streets within the Funk Zone only a block away from one other 155-unit multi-use improvement. The town and Wright negotiated a Particular Plan that allowed the resort in 1983.
The challenge requires merging six tons, tearing down each construction, and constructing a 178,919-square-foot resort with 130 extended-stay and 120 “self-service” rooms, together with an 85,000-plus-square-foot underground parking storage — in an space prone to see a drastic sea-level rise within the coming many years.
A grassroots group known as Preserve the Funk opposes the Funk Zone developments, updating posts often on its Instagram web page (@keepthefunksb) which has greater than 1,000 followers. “The Funk Zone shouldn’t be — in any method, form, or type — the neighborhood that it was once in 1983,” the group wrote in a single submit. “And it actually doesn’t want yet one more resort.”
The planning fee listening to concerning the Backyard Road Lodge is scheduled for Thursday, August 3, at 1 p.m.
