Melanie Cleveland

Hamish Marshall’s Westpac Investments is moving ahead with several commercial developments in and around San Luis Obispo County.

WestPac is continuing with its downtown Garden Street Terraces hotel/condo project—an Osos and Marsh streets commercial redevelopment— a revitalization of an abandoned building in the historic Railroad Square and a new airport hotel, Marshall said. All three should be completed by 2009.

Two 12,000-square-foot commercial buildings are also slated for construction within the next few months and finished within the year in West-Pac’s Aerovista Business Park, a 10-acre commercial complex adjacent to the San Luis Obispo County Regional Airport. The buildings are part of a five-building master plan for the 10-acre park.

To fit into the airport setting, the park’s buildings were designed by architecture firm Steven Pults & Associates to appear aeronautical, with a lot of glass and distinctive wing-like overhangs. The first two such buildings, 40,000 to 48,000 square feet in size, were built in the park in 2001. The other three were to follow about a year later, but Marshall delayed construction for the next two until he re-engineered the buildings’ designs to bring down construction costs.

“We stood to lose money on the buildings as we first designed them,” Marshall said. “Now, at least, we hope to meet our costs and then some.”

Marshall declined to elaborate on the cost of the buildings, but according to the city’s building permit valuations, the first two buildings cost him about $1 million each.

The final and largest structure to complete the park, which Marshall estimated would be between 60,000 and 75,000 square feet, should be under construction in 2009.
–
© The Tribune 2007

Melanie Cleveland

Heritage Oaks Bank will have a new Templeton branch in a $2.5 million building under construction at 1255 Las Tablas Drive. The building was designed by Steven D. Pults and Associates in San Luis Obispo.

Owned by North County oncologist and real estate developer Dr. Sanjay Ganpule, the building is across the street from another Pults-designed structure, which is also owned by Ganpule. The $5.7 million, 52,000-square-foot Omkar Medical Plaza was completed in July 2006. Both Ganpule buildings are within a block of Twin Cities Community Hospital.

The new building is a smaller version of the Omkar Medical Building, “similar in character, but not in kind,” said Rob Carnes, the project’s construction manager and president of Ground Up Design and Construction Management Inc.

“They both are reminiscent of Frank Lloyd Wright design, with braced roofs, use of brick materials and strong horizontal lines.”

The design architect for the buildings is Tim Woodle, a principal with Steven D. Pults and Associates.

Heritage Oaks Bank started a small, “starter” branch in the Omkar Medical Plaza this year while it waited for the larger, 3,500-square-foot space to be built.

“Being across the street from the hospital, it had all the markings of a very nice location,” said Larry Ward, president of Heritage Oaks Bank. “We’ll be on one of the busiest streets in Templeton with a very visible presence and drive-through banking.”

Other tenants coming to the new office building include a medical practice group, Central Coast Gastroenterology, and a New York-style gourmet deli and juice bar, owned by Eric Hice of Hice Cellars of Paso Robles and Dr. James B. Carr.

The building, where construction started in September, should have its shell completed by July and be ready for complete occupancy by the end of 2008, Carnes said.

Yet another Ganpule building is slated to go up within the next 18 months on an acre next to the Omkar Medical Plaza at 1310 Las Tablas Road. Still in its preliminary design phase, the project will most likely have 24,000 square feet of medical professional offices, Carnes said.

–
© The Tribune 2007

Melanie Cleveland

San Luis Obispo-based Quaglino Properties may start construction as early as next month on Sycamore Plaza, San Luis Obispo’s first mixed-use project with residences in an industrial zone at 3592 Sacramento Drive. The construction could well be a presage of more flexible zoning to come, where stores go up alongside light industry, in the midst of coffee shops, townhouses and apartments.

“This helps with the city’s mandate to produce housing,” said project developer Matt Quaglino, who is making both the residential and commercial spaces “condo-able,” so that people will have the option to buy or rent what they want. “And we feel there’s always a need for good commercial space, whether it’s someone who’s moving in the area, someone who is expanding or just relocating.”

The Quaglinos got the go-ahead for the project from the Planning Commission almost two years ago. The development, designed by San Luis Obispo architect firm, Steven D. Pults and Associates, will have two buildings. One will be entirely commercial and have a single level. The other will have three stories, with apartments on the second and third stories.

The residential flats will be about 1,300 square feet each, with one or two bedrooms, fireplaces, and washers and dryers. Total square footage for both buildings is more than 36,000 square feet, Pults said.

Since the project was approved, it has been redesigned with less-expensive construction materials to make the project more affordable, Quaglino said.

“It had a lot of masonry and concrete,” he said. “Now it’s basically stick-framed.”

Quaglino predicted the new Sacramento Drive project, estimated to cost about $5 million, will be finished within 14 months.
–
© The Tribune 2007

By Janis Switzer
Special to the Tribune

San Luis Obispo County has seen an explosion in the number of new wineries and tasting rooms in the past decade.
Many of these wineries – Bianchi Winery, Robert Hall Winery, Justin Winery, and Baileyana Winery – feature some of the most innovative, creative and striking architecture on the Central Coast. Behind the architecture of these new structures is one firm: Steven D. Pults, AIA & Associates of San Luis Obispo. A Cal Poly graduate, Pults started the firm out of his second bedroom in 1980 after working as an architect for three years in Santa Maria. Initially focused on commercial, industrial and office building projects, he eventually got into medical facilities and residential design.

In 1986, Pults hired fellow Cal Poly graduate Tim Woodle. A native of Sonoma County, it was Woodle who one day would lead their “winery team,” catapulting the firm into the winery-design business. “We first started about 12 years ago,” remembers Woodle, “with a small Santa Maria project for Kendall-Jackson.” The success of that project led them to design Kendall-Jackson’s huge new winery south of Salinas in Monterey County. A cover story in Practical Winery magazine about the project put the architectural firm front and center in the winery design business.

Pults and Woodle have been partners since 1996, and the firm employs 16 people – mostly Cal Poly graduates. The list of winery projects completed by the firm in the past 10 years is impressive. About 20 winery projects have been completed, including: Domaine Alfred, Orcutt Road Cellars, Edna Valley Vineyards and Alban Vineyards in Edna Valley, and Bianchi Vineyards, Justin Winery and Robert Hall in Paso Robles. “With all the buildings I’ve built in Minnesota and Arizona,” Robert Hall says, “I realize we are so lucky to have a firm of such quality and integrity right here in this area. “I would recommend them for anyone who needs a lot of creativity and a lot of hard work.” The Robert Hall project included a winery, 19,000 square feet of caves, and a recently opened hospitality center that includes a large tasting room, dining room, 200-person amphitheater and winery offices.

Pults and Woodle have a staggering 27 winery projects in the planning process. Some are simple tasting rooms, while others – such as the Vina Robles project on Highway 46 East in Paso Robles – are huge. The four-phase Vina Robles complex includes a 14,000-square-foot tasting room with banquet facilities, an 85-room high-end hotel, a state-of-the-art winery and a spa. Construction is to start “any day” on the tasting room, with the winery plans starting this spring, and the hotel starting in the next four to five years. According to Hans R. Michel, president and managing partner at Vina Robles, the complex will have “mission- and hacienda-style architecture.” He also praises Woodle as “very good to work with.”

Other projects under way by the Pults firm include major facilities at Linne Calado Winery, Niner West Estates, Opolo Winery, Rotta Winery and York Mountain. The firm does no advertising and relies on word of mouth for gaining new business. “We’ve been extremely fortunate,” Pults says, “the more work we do, the more opportunities we get.” Pults and Woodle estimate that they have worked on 80 percent of the county’s winery projects in the last 10 years. One advantage Woodle brings to his winery clients is his own understanding of the winemaking process. Making wine himself at his Templeton home, Woodle has a unique appreciation of his customers’ needs. “Architecture is an extension of their personality and the personality of their wines,” Woodle says. A winemaker’s “architecture is one of their marketing tools.” Woodle notes that, in the case of Justin Winery, the wines, labels, marketing materials and building carry the same look and theme.

Beyond the design of a building itself, Pults and Woodle also focus on the mechanical winemaking facilities inside the structure, from presses, pump systems and conveyor belts to fermentation tanks and waste water ponds. The pair believe they are most successful when they are pulled into a project from the beginning, so they can be involved with the design of the winery – inside and out. Regarding future design, they say the importance of “green building” in which the focus is to reduce energy reliance and maximize renewable and eco-friendly resources – is the way of the future. Talking of both design and function, Woodle says “as residents of this county we feel we have a responsibility to do these (winery) facilities as well as can be done,” adding “we take design very, very seriously.”

–
© The Tribune 2006

Despite the uncertainty looming on the economic horizon, Coast National Bank is going forward with construction on its new $2 million building. Located next to the Jack House at 500 Marsh St. in San Luis Obispo, the 10,700-square-foot structure is slated for completion by mid-summer 2002. It will house the bank’s San Luis Obispo branch on the ground floor, with administrative offices on the second floor and a 500-square-foot community room. Once the transition is complete, the building will hold about 25 employees.

“We debated a lot at the board level whether to break ground or delay until next spring,” said Jack Wauchope, Coast National’s president and chief executive officer. “But we decided to make a statement – it’s saying the country is going to move forward. I think we’re in for economic disruption and it could be quite severe, but it is going to get better.”

The bank, which originally planned a stucco building, was sent back to the drawing board by the city’s Architectural Review Committee, Wauchope said. Aided by architects at Steven D. Pults and Associates, the bank developed an Italianate design in brick with a slate roof that received the committee’s thumbs up.

“We think it’s going to be very attractive” and blend in well with the historic building next door, Wauchope said.

Coast National contracted with J.W. Design and Construction Inc. of San Luis Obispo for construction. The 4-year-old bank has $104 million in assets and more than 4,700 accounts. Its main branch is at 486 Marsh St., while its executive offices are on Higuera Street. Coast National also has branches in Arroyo Grande, Morro Bay and Los Osos.

– Raven J. Railey

© 2006 The Tribune

The Tribune, February 24, 2001
Leslie E. Stevens

SLO DEVELOPMENT: PROJECTS TAKE SHAPE

A key intersection on the city’s southern end will have a very different look when two of its corners are developed for commercial use. The Tank Farm Road and South Higuera Street intersection will be flanked later this year by a 43,000-square-foot office building on the southeast corner and by a yet-to-be-determined project with decidedly historic roots on the northeast corner. The two-story office building designed by architect Steven Pults & Associates is being developed by Tank Farm Properties LLC partners David Weyrich and Dan Lloyd. Its estimated value is $2.87 million. Completion is targeted for this summer. The builder is J W Design & Construction. The property is zoned for commercial service uses and will have access to fiber optic connections and DSL Internet connections, said leasing agent Charlie Senn of Senn Commercial & Investment Real Estate. Likely tenants would include architects, engineering and design firms and computer-related service companies, he said. In a nod to the state’s ongoing energy crisis, Senn said plans include a supplemental power generator.

According to Senn, leasable office space in the city is still tight So far he hasn’t signed any tenants for the new building, but he said negotiations with three businesses are ongoing. Meanwhile, Larry Strasbaugh, the owner of the 12-acre parcel on the northeast corner, is seeking a business partner interested in preserving the historical buildings on the site and incorporating them into a new retail center. Strasbaugh’s situation highlights the difficulties developers can encounter in San Luis Obispo when projects involve historic buildings. He has owned the property since 1981, and signed an agreement with the city three years ago that requires him to preserve and restore the existing 1880s-era ranch house, barn, water tower and blacksmith shop. He is also required to leave the structures in their existing locations. The site can accormnodate a variety of retail uses, including food service and wine tasting, Strasbaugh said. Several developers have shown interest in the property, he said, but they balked at the additional costs and complications of restoring and incorporating the historic structures into the projects. “It is a tremendous challenge to fully restore the structures and utilize the properly to its full economic value,” Strasbaugh said, Further compounding his problems, a fire at the farmhouse in January caused about $60,000 in damage. Strasbaugh has brought in historical experts to assist with repairs, which are ongoing.

© 2001 The Tribune

High-technology companies looking for office space in San Luis Obispo will soon have some new options.

Construction is under way on the first of a planned six-building complex next to the San Luis Obispo County Regional Airport. With its soaring, wing-like overhangs, the 40,000-square-foot, glass-and-steel building was designed by architects Steven Pults & Associates to fit into its aviation setting. Known as Aerovista Business Park, the 10-acre property will eventually consist of six buildings covering a total of 183,146 square feet, said project leasing agent Tom Patterson of Patterson Realty.

The offices have been designed with state-of-the-art systems to meet the needs of today’s high-technology users, Patterson said. All buildings will be fiber-optic ready with high-speed, broadband Internet access. The first building at 895 Aerovista Place is scheduled for occupancy by June, and negotiations are nearly completed to fill the space with two local software companies, Patterson said. Rarig Construction of San Luis Obispo is the builder.

According to Patterson, the project is a speculative development owned by Aeroloop LLL partners Alex Pananides, Patrick Smith and Hamish Marshall. “It is a significant financial commitment to make without having tenants in hand,” he said.
And the commitment is substantial. According to county records, permit value for the building under construction is $895,100. Permits are also in process for the second building, 48,000 square feet valued at more than $1 million.

Patterson equated the situation to the commitment of Ray Kinsela, the main character in the movie “Field of Dreams” to build a baseball field in an Iowa cornfield – “If you build it, they will come,” he said. Based on the current shortage of office space in the San Luis Obispo area, Aerovista should be able to tap into a ready pool of tenants. In an Economic Vitality Corp. survey released in June 2000 of 100 local companies, 67 respondents indicated they were planning expansions, including 34 percent in San Luis Obispo.

Asked if the partners were concerned about recent reports of a technology sector slowdown, Patterson said they have not seen any evidence yet. “The majority of companies in the SLO area still are in an expansion mode,” he said. Patterson said he was still receiving a lot of inquiries from Silicon Valley firms that view our county’s land costs and commercial rental rates as bargains. The entire business park is scheduled to be completed by June 2002.

© 2000 The Tribune