Santa Barbara Bank & Trust announced Wednesday that it has leased the historic Hill-Carrillo Adobe from the Santa Barbara Foundation for the purpose of providing complimentary meeting room space to the local nonprofit community.

The bank will open this new community resource on Monday, March 14.

The building, owned and formerly occupied by the Santa Barbara Foundation, is located at 15 E. Carrillo St. and includes 1,906 square feet of indoor meeting room and office space, as well as an additional enclosed courtyard patio. The bank plans to offer the large meeting room, fireside room and outside patio to nonprofit organizations for meetings and other activities, free of charge. It will utilize the adjacent office space for its community relations and marketing activities.

SBB&T has long provided meeting space to nonprofit groups throughout its Central Coast communities, including the Lancaster Community Room at its headquarters at 1021 Anacapa St. in downtown Santa Barbara, a building currently closed for renovation. Bank staff will reoccupy all three floors of the building in March of this year.

“Our bank is committed to supporting our nonprofit partners in all the ways that make our communities stronger,” said George Leis, president and chief operating officer. “That includes financial support, our one-of-a-kind RAVE employee volunteer teams, and a variety of in-kind gifts that assist these outstanding organizations with the vitally important work they do.

“SBB&T’s community rooms are very important to our local nonprofit partners. They guarantee a clean, safe, welcoming and convenient environment for their meetings at no charge to the organization. As our bank moves forward with its expansion plans, we found that we needed to utilize all of our headquarters building space to accommodate our growth, so we began a search for new community room meeting space in downtown to ensure that our local nonprofit partners continued to have access to this key resource.

“Clearly, we were exceptionally pleased when this absolutely perfect space became available. This unique property is located in the heart of downtown. It has three distinct meeting space options, and without a doubt, it’s one of the most historic and interesting buildings in California. We could not be more satisfied at the opportunity to have worked with the Santa Barbara Foundation to keep this phenomenal space in use in support of our friends and neighbors.”

“We are so pleased by this partnership and the continuation of the Adobe’s 83-year history as a meeting place for important work by the nonprofits in our community,“ said Ron Gallo, president and CEO of the Santa Barbara Foundation. “The Adobe’s legacy will live on, and could not be in better hands.”

“We’re certain that the Santa Barbara Bank & Trust Community Partners Center will quickly become the hub of nonprofit activity in Santa Barbara,” Leis said. “We can’t wait to open the doors for our
first meeting.”

— Debbie Whiteley is the public affairs director for Santa Barbara Bank & Trust.