Foodbank of Santa Barbara County purchases warehouse in Goleta
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. --- The Foodbank of Santa Barbara County recently purchased a new warehouse on Wednesday.
The Foodbank bought a $12.7 million warehouse at 80-82 Coromar Drive in Goleta.
The Foodbank secured the space with $3 million from its reserves and got a $9.7 million loan from Montecito Bank & Trust. The organization hopes to raise $15 million in the coming year to complete the purchase and provide for the necessary renovations for the building.
“The cost of land and building from scratch is so prohibitive, this space was an opportunity we couldn’t afford to pass up,” explained Erik Talkin, Foodbank CEO. “We’ve been exploring ways to grow and improve our Santa Barbara facility for years, especially since we have experienced how suddenly need can increase and capacity to meet it can be impaired when disaster strikes.”
The Foodbank says the current space on Hollister Avenue is leased from the County of Santa Barbara. The Foodbank made the purchase of the new warehouse due to the inability to expand the current warehouse because the space is needed for other Santa Barbara County needs.
Hayes Commercial Group's Liam Murphy and Greg Bartholomew represented the Foodbank in the transaction. Dave Pintard of Pintard Commercial Real Estate and Kristopher Roth of Hayes Commercial Group represented the seller.
The new property consists of two buildings that were built back in 1984. Both buildings total 77,900 square-feet on a 4.3-acre parcel.
The 80 Coromar Drive building is a 57,600 square-foot warehouse building with twenty-foot ceilings, and multiple loading doors, which will be an ideal hub for Foodbank’s South County distribution operations. The 82 Coromar Drive building is a 20,300 square-foot office building that will house its operations team.
The Foodbank's current location is only 9,000 square feet and holds only 15 percent of the food needed to feed those facing hunger in south county. The organization says due to the small space, food is brought down daily from Santa Maria. The lack of food space also brings the problem of produce going bad due to inadequate cold storage.
The Foodbank says it has been looking for a new facility to help with its efforts in providing food for those in need during the pandemic.
The location of the new warehouse, which is near the corner of Hollister Avenue and Los Carneros Road, will give easy access to the freeway for delivery trucks.
“We’ve seen in recent years what happens when a transport channel into the county gets blocked, as with the Montecito Debris Flow that shut down the 101,” Talkin added. “But if 101 and 154 were blocked by, say, a major earthquake, we wouldn’t be able to move food between north and south county. Santa Barbara, Goleta and Carpinteria would face a real crisis of food access.”
The Foodbank says it plans to occupy a portion of both buildings but will lease additional space to other non-profits and businesses working to improve the community.
Anyone that is interested in leasing the available space in the buildings can reach out to liam@hayescommercial.com or greg@hayescommercial.com.
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