Solana Beach project is a model for business redevelopment

If you walked down South Cedros Street in Solana Beach 10 years ago, you wouldn't have seen much. It was mostly a light industrial area, home to cabinetmakers, furniture builders, and a scattered collection of artisans.

    Walk down South Cedros today - especially on the weekends - and you'll have to make your way though the crowd. This 1 1/2 block thoroughfare, longtime home to the legendary Belly Up Tavern, has become a model for what imagination, entrepreneurship and community cooperation can accomplish.

    South Cedros has become the place to go if you want something unique for your home or garden. Custom furniture builders, wood sculptors, slipcover designers, artists, landscapers and antique dealers have taken over the street. Gradually they've been joined by jewelry makers, a purveyor of French soaps and potions, clothing stores, a yoga center, a camping and outdoor supplier and some interesting California-style eateries. The Belly Up recently opened a stylish indoor-outdoor dining spot called The Wild Note Cafe.

    But South Cedros wasn’t always so full of ambiance, charm and bustle. Harvey Herzberg, who has owned property on the street for 20 years, was one of the driving forces behind the change,

    "The street was frozen in time before the city incorporated," explains Herzberg. The county intended to widen Cedros to two lanes and restrict it to light industrial uses. Property owners on South Cedros objected because the plans would require the demolition of many buildings and the removal of fronts of others. Some fertile minds thought the buildings had a lot of life left in them.

    Property owners fought hard for the incorporation of Solana Beach and since then Herzberg, Belly Up Tavern owner David Hodges, and others have been involved in defining what the area would become. The idea of a "design district" evolved and things took off. First, the street was designated a "special commercial" zone, with the hope of expanding the existing artisan culture. The property owners formed a development district to help get utility wires placed underground, sidewalks poured and other improvements.

    Sean MacLeod came to South Cedros when he bought the old Teledyne building in 1992. When asked for his job title, MacLeod says, "We take old buildings and fix them up." MacLeod restructured the 56,000-square-foot manufacturing and storage facility into offbeat spaces for what he calls "creative" uses. Now he has 24 tenants, including a ballet studio, an architect and a graphic designer.

    Later he redeveloped the Solana Van and Storage building into the Cedros Trading Center, a mart where small retailers rent stalls and offer items such as imported fabrics, pottery, wind chimes, baskets and jewelry. MacLeod and his partners want to preserve the ambiance of the street. The new building they are constructing adjacent to the Cedros Trading Center will look like a San Francisco warehouse. That combined retail/office space opens next May.

    Thanks to the efforts of many small business owners, Solana Beach, unlike many other newly incorporated suburban cities in San Diego County, is developing a genuine downtown. In an area dominated by malls, Solana Beach's trendy new downtown is a small miracle.

    "This moved forward on local property owners' initiative," says Solana Beach City Manager Robert Semple. "It didn’t need local government to get in the way."

    The early property owners did not precisely envision the destination retail zone that blossomed after the Amtrak Station was completed, says Herzberg, but they welcome the progression of events. In some ways the district is a victim of its own success.

    "Now we need more places to eat and more parking," he says.

    Not only that, says Joe Sillstrup, a local real estate developer, but "people who have been on South Cedros for awhile are used to lower rents and they don’t need to pay for traffic." Sillstrup hopes to build an "off district" development just north of the Amtrak station for businesses, craftspeople and light industrial users who provide support to the South Cedros Design District. The project is making its way through the permit process, and may be on the ballot for approval by local voters.

    Despite their success, the South Cedros property owners aren’t resting on their laurels. Earlier this year they met and voluntarily assessed themselves 15 cents per square foot to finance additional streetscaping. The city will match their donations two-to-one. Construction begins immediately on three gateway arches - one at each end and another in the middle of the design district. The arches will draw attention to the street, give it greater identity, and also will slow traffic. To make sure the wind energy on the street is perfect, the arches have been Feng Shui'd by Dr. Richard Tan, San Diego’s leading consultant on the ancient Chinese art of placing buildings and monuments in their proper alignment with nature. Surely Tan agrees with those who've seen South Cedros grow and prosper - it’s obviously aligned properly with something.

    Janet Lowe is author of several investment books, including "Value Investing Made Easy" (McGraw Hill) and "Warren Buffett Speaks" (John Wiley & Sons).