Project Overview

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Garden Street Terraces incorporates significant elements that support Downtown as the civic, cultural and social center of San Luis Obispo. In addition to contributing to the economic health of Downtown, the project creates an exciting, compact and visually interesting diversity of uses within a mixed-use structure.

The retail spaces along Garden Street will either be retained as is, or rebuilt to the same proportions as currently exist. The goal is to encourage a diversity of retailers by providing a variety of retail-space options, from smaller "sole-proprietor" or start-up retail spaces along Garden Street, to larger, more traditional retail pads along Broad and Marsh streets.

Individual character of retail spaces is achieved using a variety of "downtown" exterior-finish materials, such as brick and plaster, as well as utilizing a palette of "individualizing color" for storefronts, awnings and canopies.

The street façade designs provide both vertical and horizontal relief with varied setbacks, material changes, courtyards, balconies, terraces, trellises, cornice treatments and other elements, which work to "break down" the overall mass, bulk and scale of the project. Upper levels are terraced to not only provide architectural relief, but also serve to open up the project from the street levels. Widened sidewalks will encourage more pedestrian traffic, as well as accommodate outdoor retailing activities, including sidewalk dining.

The "open space" created by the project's internal courtyards on the second level will serve to further reduce the building's appearance from the street levels. These courtyards or terraces, some of which will be publicly accessible, provide enhanced architectural relief, as well as an opportunity to introduce new landscaping, which will be visible from both private and public vantage points.

To further articulate the building at the upper levels, the project intends to capture and utilize often-overlooked flat-roof space by incorporating a public terrace, which will overlook Garden Street and provide sweeping vistas to Cuesta Ridge. Recessed walls, wood-trellis treatments, and perimeter planter boxes at the upper levels will soften the building's edges and reinforce the public terraces "Garden" Street location.