High-Profile Construction Projects Quickly Taking Shape in Downtown Santa Maria
SANTA MARIA, Calif. (KEYT) - A pair of high-profile developments in the heart of downtown Santa Maria are beginning to take shape in their construction process.
At the site of the old Mervyn's/Fallas building in the Santa Maria Town Center West shopping center, work at the future home of Heritage Lofts is about a third of the way through according to project developer Brett Vernon.
"I'm just really excited," said Brett Vernon, The Vernon Group President. "We've been working on this thing for almost five years. It feels really good to see it, to see a building starting to take shape."
In August, the Santa Barbara-based company broke ground on the project that will redevelop the old commercial building into a 104-unit residential complex.
"Right now, we're currently framing in, roughing in, plumbing, electrical," said Vernon. "Since it's an adaptive reuse building, we're able to work on multiple stories at the same time where that's not typical in construction. We actually have the second floor further ahead than the first floor, which usually you've got to build from the ground up, so we're ahead of ourselves in some areas and behind ourselves in other parts of the building. Things are going as planned. Typical little hiccups that we have in construction. Other than that everything's on everything's looking good. We're on schedule. We're looking forward to getting people in here and reactivating downtown."
Vernon added he expects construction to last for about another year and for the first residents to move in as early as March 2027.
Across the street at the Santa Maria Town Center mall, construction is also taking place on new market and retail space inside the building that was the longtime former home of Sears building.
Work is now happening on both the inside and outside of the building, transforming the site into a new "El Super" market on the ground floor, with addition retail space planned for the second floor.
Compared to the Heritage Lofts, which is being reshaped dramatically on the outside and now looks very different than it did just a few months ago, the new El Super building is currently seeing most of the work taking place on the inside.
For those who pass by the work site, much of the outside construction has taken place where the old Sears auto shop was located.
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