Isla Vista’s Friendship Manor Moving to Santa Barbara’s Eastside

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This article was underwritten in part by the Mickey Flacks Journalism Fund for Social Justice, a proud, innovative supporter of local news. To make a contribution go to sbcan.org/journalism_fund.

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After more than a half-century in Isla Vista, the senior living community Friendship Manor is moving to Santa Barbara’s Eastside. This summer, the retirement community’s management announced that Friendship Manor had purchased 711 N. Milpas Street, the site of Capitol Hardware. 

“This [site] was really appealing because it’s on a main corridor,” Friendship Manor Boardmember Eva Turenchalk said. She said that the new site is near grocery stores and public transportation, as well as in reasonably close proximity to the beach (a perk of the I.V. location that Turenchalk said some residents appreciate). 

Developers constructed the current Friendship Manor — a three-story, cream-colored cinderblock building on El Colegio Road — as a private student dorm in 1966. By 1973, Christian Home Services Inc. purchased the building and gave it a facelift. They installed an elevator, put in ramps, and constructed a walkway between a residential building and its dining hall. 

But as a former dorm, Turenchalk said, the building wasn’t designed with seniors in mind. Then there’s the building’s age and maintenance needs. Turenchalk said that Friendship Manor has had to make repairs to its pipes and heater. Major repairs, she said, are difficult in a fully occupied building. 

As early as 2010, management staff announced they were looking for a building better suited to its residents. Turenchalk, a land-use consultant by trade, said that the Milpas Street site wasn’t on the radar until news of the sale reached them last year. 

The property is the home to longtime Santa Barbara business Capitol Hardware. The city first identified the property as a place for housing in 2011. Alan Bleecker, the property and store’s longtime owner, and his partners submitted a preliminary application for a mixed-use housing project in 2015. Over the next decade, Bleecker and his partners went through various iterations in size and style and came before both the city’s Architectural Board of Review and the City Council multiple times. The project sparked extensive public comment, with community members citing concerns on the building’s scale (four stories), style, and how it would impact the neighborhood.

In 2020, local developer Ed St. George joined the project as an investor and co-developer. The project morphed again, proposing more units (82 to the previously proposed 76), including 16 affordable units, with preference given to teachers and police officers. St. George left the project in 2025, leaving Bleecker and his partner, Jay Bjorndahl, as the project’s sole owners. 

In a statement to the Independent, Bleecker said that after the long entitlement process and jumps in construction and financing costs, the developer decided the best path forward was to sell the property. 

Then came Friendship Manor. Turenchalk said Friendship Manor got in touch with Bleecker when they got word the property was going on the market. The manor used the profits it made from the sale of its adjacent lot to UCSB in 2025. 

Escrow opened last fall, she said, and Friendship Manor met with city staff to make sure the retirement home’s leadership could build something suitable for seniors. The deal closed at the end of June. 

Turenchalk said Friendship Manor’s project is different from the 82-rental unit project. Instead, Friendship Manor is planning a 156-room building with a shared kitchen and eight housing units for staff. The project will have significantly less parking, she said — 31 spots — because the senior residents will not, by and large, own vehicles. It will include two large activity rooms, a library, and theater. 

Because there are 55 fewer units proposed for the new building, Friendship Manor stopped backfilling its rooms this summer. 

Bleecker said that he was pleased when Friendship Manor approached him about the sale. 

“I have a personal connection to Friendship Manor, where my father spent the last five years of his life. I know firsthand what a special place it is and the important role it plays in our community,” he said. 

Bleecker said that he and his partner, Jay Bjorndahl, saw the move as a win-win. As for Capitol Hardware, he said Capitol Hardware isn’t disappearing from the area. 

“We are not going out of business. We are simply moving half a block down the street to the Santa Barbara Plumbing building, where we will continue to operate,” he said. 

Turenchalk said that Friendship Manor hopes to have its building permits by early next year, and make the move in 2029.

Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this story mistakenly referred to 711 N. Milpas Street as the former site of Capitol Hardware, which remains open at that location.