Do you think it’s possible that converting a dingy old department store in downtown Santa Maria into apartments is the step needed to reinvigorate an area that’s needed reinvigoration for as long as it can remember?
I remember when Fallas Discount Store first proposed filling the space on Broadway. It was 2013. Mayor Alice Patino had a conniption fit.
She didn’t like the idea of a bargain basement store taking up residence in the beloved—yet eerily vacant—town center. She didn’t like the idea of having neighbors that might not take care of the neighborhood, she said at the time.
Mervyn’s had been closed for five years, and the 86,000 square feet of retail space was just empty. Fallas spent a few years in residence there, but then closed in 2022 and left behind a giant reminder of its presence.
The big Black Friday sale banner still hangs where Fallas left it. On the side of the empty building the discount retailer supposedly invested millions into before it opened. So much for staying power.
Now, Heritage Walk Lofts, approved in 2023, is in the beginning stages of renovating the eyesore into 104 apartment units on two stories that will rent at market rate. As part of that work, the city—and Patino—will finally begin to realize the Downtown Specific Plan.
High arches and Spanish tile work brought to Santa Maria by the Vernon Group, which the city has pinned its hopes and dreams on, will tie together the lofts and four other downtown projects. All five are the responsibility of this one developer.
Hopefully the developer lasts longer than Fallas did.
The city’s future dreams aren’t everyone’s idea of a good time. A six-story building proposed for the corner of Broadway and Main where a barely used park now sits is making the residents living next to the space nervous. They live in a seven-story building.
Some of the existing low-income housing residents don’t seem interested in more low-income residents taking up residence next to them in the soon-to-be built Perlman Apartments (about 150 apartments). And other city dwellers agree.
“That’s a lot of people that you’re jamming into a small area,” Susan Sorenson told the Santa Maria City Council on Aug. 5. “I think there were other choices that could have been made.”
Well, a lot more residents are planned for the whole downtown area. With a little more than 550 total units planned for the town center area—Spanish mission-style and on-theme, of course, plazas included—downtown Santa Maria is putting “placemaking” faith into the Vernon Group. Those plans include commercial, retail, and restaurant spaces, rooftop lounges, and more arches. Not a lot of parking space.
But as Councilmember Maribel Aguilera-Hernadez put it: “The city is fully built out.”
The only places to grow within city limits, without annexing land, is on city-owned parcels and through infill development projects. And that’s exactly what’s happening.
“We’re actually looking at annexing property because the city of Santa Maria has run out of locations to build,” she said. “And just like anything, when you want to reduce the price of anything, … you have to flood the market.”
The Canary thinks 550 units isn’t a flood. Send thoughts to canary@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Aug 14-24, 2025.