Wednesday, October 24, 2018 / by Tim Minjares
San Elijo Hills Town Center Plan
Nicolas Jonville on San Elijo Hills Town Center
Nicolas Jonville with the Jonville Team/Keller Williams Realty, and San Elijo Hills homeowner for over 10 years, was present at the meeting and also participated in the public discussions at the neighborhood “Town Center Development” meeting. Because of his experience in the San Elijo Hills Real Estate market and recently its commercial aspect, we felt that his input (Guest Post) might help to shed some light on the town center project. His thoughts to follow-up on the meeting and our last posting of Dec 8th, “San Elijo Hills Town Center Proposed Development Meeting”, are the following:
- Like most homeowners present at the meeting, I was disappointed with the plans presented, suggesting a large-scale reduction of the commercial space compared to the original proposals. I believe that, if properly designed and planned, the town center would be a great success and attract both San Elijo residents and residents of surrounding communities. Residents have been waiting for a real town center. A town center that you can walk to with your family, browse, shop, eat and get together with friends and neighbors. At the meeting, HomeFed representatives mentioned that they had concerns regarding the success of a large-scale commercial town center (as originally planned), also mentioning that their commercial real estate broker was having difficulties in locating interested tenants for the planned/potential commercial spaces.
- We recently experienced first hand in San Elijo the response from retail entrepreneurs and businesses. Our real estate team successfully leased over 90% of the original Visitor Center building (1215 San Elijo Rd) for the landlord in just a few months. 10 business suites were leased upstairs to quality, professional tenants. We also were in charge, beginning in June 2013, of finding a tenant for the downstairs retail space/café/restaurant next to our office and had multiple interested parties. As mentioned at the meeting, we had 5 – 6 very interested parties for this larger space (over 15 inquiries). The owners of Café Stoked, also San Elijo residents, had great ideas, were the best fit for the space and now operate a thriving business. They just received their beer/wine license and are going to be open for dinner soon.
Our findings during our marketing of the building were the following:
- Many restaurateurs did not find that the space would meet their requirements due to the lack of a full-sized kitchen and the indoor space was too small for their needs.
- Many business owners and entrepreneurs (most of them San Diego County based businesses) responded to our marketing, but the space was no longer available or not appropriate for their business. Among the various requests were: veterinarian, retail boutique/gift shop, multi-boutique store (as on Cedros in Solana Beach), etc.
- Considering our experience with commercial space in the neighborhood, I believe that some of the new stores need to be larger in size than the current Market Walk stores, but the current proposal is for stores of same or similar size. Some larger spaces (combined with smaller ones) would allow to attract a few larger anchor tenants who would also bring in some shoppers/visitors from outside of San Elijo and help support the rest of the businesses. This is in essence why most retail centers have some brand name stores, or staple stores…to bring in the traffic.
- I believe that one of the buildings could be office suites and could easily be leased to professionals such as accountants, attorneys, therapists, etc.
- I am convinced that businesses can thrive in San Elijo Hills with the support of the residents and visitors, but it is also important for the lease price of the space to be a fair market price allowing the businesses to thrive.
The input of residents at the meeting was inspired, creative and constructive. It was productive for HomeFed to reach out to the community for input. The community is obviously looking forward to a larger scale town center than what was proposed and hopefully all parties can get together to find a win-win plan.
Thanks,
Nicolas Jonville
The Jonville Team in San Elijo Hills:
Living it, Loving it, Promoting it...Our Recipe for Your Success!
Tel: 760-471-5098
Nicolas & Jena Jonville
Anne, Brooke, Paige, Pascale, Stephanie & Todd
E: RealEstate@JonvilleTeam.com
www.JonvilleTeam.com for SD County Homes
www.SEHproperties.com for San Elijo Homes
Jonville Team, Keller Williams Realty
1215 San Elijo Road - San Elijo Hills
San Marcos, CA 92078
Nicolas Jonville CA DRE 01410224
