city
‘Black Hole’ Gets Green Light
Gushing Praise for New ‘La Entrada’ Proposal
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BY N I C K W E L S H
welve years after winning approval from the Santa Barbara City Council — and 16 years after development plans were first submitted — Santa Barbara’s notoriously protective and persnickety Historic Landmarks Commission (HLC) DIG IN: The Historic Landmarks Commission was unanimously approved plans uncharacteristically effusive about new plans for the to build a new 123-room hotel Entrada hotel project slated for the bottom of State Street. on three parcels of downShown here is a rendering of the project’s public plaza. town real estate that spread out from the epicenter of State and Mason parcel will also be the site of a sweeping outstreets down by the railroad depot. Conspicu- door plaza, some quasi-public park space, and ously absent from this historic occasion was about 20,000 square feet of one-story retail the developer himself, Michael Rosenfeld of shops that face directly onto State Street. A Los Angeles; his attorney, Doug Fell; or any new high-end restaurant and/or wine bar will celebratory champagne corks let loose by any go up near Mason and Helena streets, in keepparticipants exhausted by the sheer length of ing with the new personality of the so-called time elapsed. Equally striking was the glowing Funk Zone it abuts. praise showered upon the latest iteration of the Likewise, Rosenfeld proposed compressproject by members of the HLC, long famous ing the construction schedule that had been among practicing architects for their glower- imposed by city administrators in the vain hope that construction would proceed in a ing — sometimes caustic — criticisms. “It was glowing, very positive,” remarked timely fashion. All this required City AdminAllison DeBusk, the city planner who has istrator Jim Armstrong to issue what’s known bird-dogged the project through the design as a “Determination of Substantial Conforreview process for many years now. “That’s mance,” meaning that the proposed changes very unusual.” It was the architectural detail, were still in keeping with what the City CounDeBusk said, that won over the commission- cil had approved in 2001. It’s worth noting ers, little touches relating to windows, land- that since 2001, the project has been issued scaping, and steps. HLC member Michael no fewer than six such determinations, half Drury, a Santa Barbara native and landscape of which involved relatively major changes. painter, went so far with his praise as to term When Rosenfeld proposed the latest changes the new design “idiosyncratic Santa Bar- earlier this year, he received a very mixed bara Spanish-revival architecture.” Or, as he response from the Historic Landmarks Comexplained a few days after the meeting,“quint- mission. One member dismissed the new plans as “boring,” and others expressed alarm essential Santa Barbara stuff.” The extraordinary length of time required that Rosenfeld was attempting to shortchange for Rosenfeld to secure such approvals can’t the amount of open plaza space that previous be blamed on the city’s often-maligned design developers had promised. review process. Rosenfeld, a recent arrival on Rosenfeld clearly heeded what he heard as the scene, only bought the long-troubled proj- did his architects with DesignArc. The preect a few years ago from Mountain Funding, vious plan’s most caustic critics on the HLC the investment bank that foreclosed on the heaped nothing but superlatives upon them project’s original developer, Bill Levy, who had last week. Likewise, Rosenfeld took pains to famously declared bankruptcy in 2007 after mend fences with neighboring business and allegedly sinking $90 million into what he had property owners — like Tony Romasanta hoped would be an “urban village” of time- — who’ve long had their noses seriously out share condos. Rosenfeld, now involved in a $2 of joint by the neglect and disrepair prior billion renovation of the Century Plaza Hotel, Entrada owners visited upon the street. “He’s managed to pick up the property for a mere $7 done what he said he would do,” said Romasmillion at the height of the recession. Moun- anta, normally outspokenly critical. “I’m optitain Funding had rejected an earlier offer of mistic.” When City Administrator Armstrong $20 million as insufficient. issued the last finding of substantial conforRosenfeld wasted little time reimagining a mance, he decreed that construction would be new configuration for La Entrada. Rather than completed no later than September 30, 2016, building the 62 time-share condos initially and that Rosenfeld would meet quarterly with approved, he would build a 123-room hotel. city officials to ensure his pockets were deep Rather than distribute parking throughout all enough to get the job done. While Armstrong, three parcels, Rosenfeld proposed putting all like Romasanta, had nothing but praise for the parking in one lot that would rise three sto- Rosenfeld, his optimism remains tempered by ries aboveground on the parcel distinguished the project’s long history of even longer delays. by the green wooden fence that surrounds the “I’ll believe it when they take out building perunfinished construction pit it encloses. That mits and begin construction,” he said. ■
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augusT 22, 2013
THE INDEPENDENT
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