I’ve lived in Santa Barbara for 52 years and have had six businesses both on and off State Street. My wife and I own the Wildcat Lounge, a half block off State Street.
For years many of our friends advocated for closing State Street, at least occasionally, if just to bring more community downtown. When the city sponsored the Experimental Weekend, closing the underpass and the 400 and 500 blocks downtown, it featured innovative light installations, basketball courts, a soccer goal, ping pong, and a petting zoo.
People loved it.
Today, six years after the pandemic we have an opportunity for a much greater experiment; we have a State Street Master Plan that many have worked so hard to bring about.
Among other things, this plan calls for:
• Wider sidewalks that allow outdoor dining while also ensuring greater accessibility for those with needs.
• Retractable bollards for special events and the return of parades.
• Safer, more delineated bike lanes to effectively slow down e-bikes while still encouraging much-needed safe bike transit and family “bike strolling.”
• A full-size shuttle downtown to the waterfront.
• More shade trees, enhanced paseos, community event spaces, and much more.
After years of public debate, community input, polling, long council meetings and many hours of outreach and planning by our city staff, City Council voted last month by a 6 to 1 margin to go forward with the Master Plan and to not bring cars back to the street.
Nonetheless, a coalition of downtown property owners, merchants, and others see the return of cars as being highly beneficial to their interests. Although we can appreciate their concerns (and many of them are our friends), we feel it is time to go forward and let go of the idea that cars will help return downtown to “what it used to be.”
State Street is already getting better. Yardi Systems is moving into the Macy’s building; 80-100 new housing units are coming into the Nordstrom shell. Other entities that have or are currently investing into downtown are Westmont, The Music Academy of the West, UCSB, new and expanding businesses like Free People, The Grand, Silver Greens, and the McHurley Film Center to name a few.
Is State Street perfect? Certainly not. But many of us are excited about its future, especially with a plan like the one before City Council next Tuesday.
