Garden Street Mixed-use and the Hotel Cerro

Project Description:

This project started as a City parking lot, surrounding buildings, and a busy and narrow Downtown Street. In a shared vision between the City and a local Developer, a plan was formed to create an inviting place for visitors and residences alike. The project blossomed into a mixed-use project that includes commercial space, a hotel, and residential condominiums. Historically, the land was comprised of multiple parcels created by deeds carved out of various lots of an antiquated subdivision. The City owned the parking lot, and the Developer owned two adjacent buildings. In order to facilitate residential condominiums within City land, a three-dimensional subdivision map was prepared with two parcels designated for condominium purposes. The condominium parcels hover in the air, connected to the public street via access easements, above the former parking lot, now a parking garage. Alongside the condominium project and the parking garage and in its own 3D parcel, is the hotel. The hotel parcel contains easements that benefit the residential condominium units. There is even a vertical trash chute easement; what could be more fun! Garden Street itself was a quaint but crowded 2 lane City street. Fun to walk and shop but not stay for long. Our surveyors performed a detailed survey of the street frontage including the all-important concrete finish floors of the small shops along the way. Our engineers designed a beautiful one lane street with diagonal parking and wide ample sidewalks. Design focused on access, including access for our friends and family that have disabilities. With a tip of the hat to our engineering team: the rainwater gets off the sidewalks without a hiccup and is on its way to San Luis Creek. Today, Garden Street and Hotel Cerro are great places to sit indoors or out, enjoy a ‘cup of mud’, and watch the world go by.

Project Highlights:

• 3-dimensional sub-division
• City and Private land ownership
• Privately owned condominium units within a 3D parcel (first in SLO County)
• Historical site –buildings retained on site, a couple of which date back to 1883
• Upper courtyard, pool on roof
• A boutique hotel with restaurant, café, bar and lounge
• 8 residential condominium units
• Ground level commercial retail space
• Public parking spaces within the Hotel site with an ADA access easement