The Carlsbad Village Antique Mall was 14,630sf on a 7/10-acre lot. The new owners paid $7,525,000 in August, 2019 (the sellers had paid $1,450,000 in 1999) and plan to increase the square footage by 44%. Hopefully there will be plenty of on-site parking!
2742-52 STATE STREET. CARLSBAD, CA.
State Street Commons is an adaptive reuse and major renovation of the antique mall in the heart of Carlsbad Village. The project will pay tribute to the architectural character of the two butler frame buildings and quonset hut. The project consists of approximately 21,000 sf on a 30,350 sf parcel a couple blocks from the Pacific Ocean and directly across from the transit station. The vibrant mixed use project will house top tier retail and office tenants.
I really like their ideas to transform it. Having small shops and eateries is what makes the Village special. So pleased it will not be more high end 3 or 4 story condos.
As far as parking we residents have been trying to get our City to understand the issue and finally they are doing the “studies” differently. And a parking structure nearby is supposed to be in the works.
Thanks Ronee!
More of the old guard getting the boot:
https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2020/feb/25/stringers-carlsbad-village-coins-evicted-state/
A landowner of prime commercial property in Carlsbad’s Village district has given one of the oldest downtown businesses a 30-day eviction notice. Neighboring businesses are allegedly “terrified” that a similar fate may come to them.
“The whole block is terrified,” says Sarah Lenhert about the eviction of Carlsbad Village Coins. “The entire complex is under siege and they are all wondering who will be evicted next,” Lenhert says of the adjacent tenants. She says the eviction, which was “a complete surprise,” gave the collectable coin shop until March 1 to get out of the State Street space it has used since 1977.
Lenhert was the property manager for Carlsbad Village Coins and the adjacent State Street businesses from 1988 until 2019. She is the ex-wife for Leor Lakritz, the man who controls most of the commercial property on the west side of the 2900 block of State Street.
Lakritz is the majority owner of the two-story building built in the 1920’s which has housed Carlsbad Village Coins for 43 years.
Lenhert says she wants to do everything she can to thwart the eviction which she says is being executed because Lakritz wants a new tenant. “Danny (Ray, the owner of Carlsbad Village Coins) is the sweetest man. He has never been late on his rent. This isn’t about the money. It’s about the power. [Lakritz is] doing this for pure spite…He’s trying to impose L.A. thinking on Carlsbad.”
Lakritz gained local notoriety as the man who wanted to build a four-story, mixed-use project on the corner of State Street and Carlsbad Village Drive. That lot is immediately south of Carlsbad Village Coins. That project, called Carlsbad Village Center, was rejected by the Carlsbad City Council in 2017 and again in 2018. Most three- and four-story developments in the Village area have won approval over the last eight years. But this project was rejected by a council majority including councilman Keith Blackburn who normally sides with developers. “It’s not consistent with the Village and it’s too overwhelming,” said Blackburn.
Lenhert says Lakritz made unilateral decisions on behalf of his other State Street land-owning partners. “He wasted $260,000 on the architects and consultants for that [Carlsbad Village Center] project,” says Lenhert. “I was fired as property manager when I spent $150,000 of the partner’s money on tenant improvements including leaking roofs and caved-in ceilings.”
One nearby entrepreneur who declined to be named says that the downtown Carlsbad Village district has certainly upscaled over the last 10 years attracting more visitors who in fact are spending more money. The downside is rents have increased while parking availability has drastically decreased.
Some longtime locals lament that the potential loss of Carlsbad Village Coins signals the loss of a funkier, more soulful Carlsbad, and that only a few local businesses like Garcia’s Mexican restaurant and its adjacent retro barber shop remain as one of the few vestiges of old Carlsbad.
Carlsbad Village Coins is one of five collectable coin shops in San Diego County that buys and sells coins and gives free appraisals. The others are in Poway, Vista, Escondido, and La Jolla.
Susan Guiterrez, president of the Carlsbad Historical Society, says her club does not take positions on specific issues. “We don’t want to get into what people can or can not do.” Yet she does lament that area youth can not have the experience enjoyed by her now grown sons. “There were places they could visit by just walking around downtown. There was that store with rubber stamps, the store that just had board games, Village Coins and the Grand Deli. I miss the variety.”
Mike Downs closed his popular breakfast-and-lunch Grand Deli five years ago after 28 years when a new landlord bumped his rent by 65 per cent. The 5,000 square foot building he was in sold for $2.1-million. “My mechanic owned Carlsbad Auto Technology [on State Street] for 25 years. They came in and said he had 90 days to get out. He tried to find a new spot but he couldn’t find one. I still use him but like me, he now works as an employee.”
I think providing more parking means inviting more cars to the Village which will only result in more traffic.
Parking should be metered on State Street and limited to 2-3 hours on adjacent streets. Maybe offer a resident parking permit program if it’s an existing residence with no on-site parking.
Better to push for pedestrians and bicycles. And/or, make an effort to live where you work.
If the parking is too difficult for someone then they can take their business to a suburban strip mall.