The Santa Barbara City Council officially authorized the development deal to transfer its share of ownership of the Paseo Nuevo shopping center to Yardi Systems, which will take over as majority owner of the mall in a plan that will make the empty Macy’s building the company’s new downtown headquarters.
The development deal comes with more than $7 million in contributions from Yardi Systems and DSP, the company that will retain ownership of the Nordstrom building. The redevelopment plan includes a proposed adaptive reuse housing project od 80 to 112 units to be constructed at the Nordstrom property at the same time as Yardi’s retail to office conversion.
This latest plan to revitalize Paseo Nuevo emerged after previous plans for a large-scale housing development, proposed by the previous majority owner AllianceBernstein, were rejected by City Council late last year. Shortly after, Yardi Systems approached the city and AllianceBernstein to express an interest in acquiring the property and beginning a short-term plan to bring up to 600 employees into the long-vacant Macy’s building.
Almost the entire council expressed support for the new plan, though several community members and Councilmember Wendy Santamaria shared concerns about the level of public engagement in the new proposal. The agreement was approved 6-0-1, with Councilmember Santamaria abstaining from the vote.
“I just wish that we had a little bit more time for the public to engage,” Santamaria said.
Councilmember Meagan Harmon pushed back, sharing her support for the proposal and saying there had been many public hearings with “substantive back-and-forth conversation” about the future of Paseo Nuevo.
“It just simply isn’t true that this has come out of the blue,” Harmon said.
