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A year in the works, wine bar and café Satellite is preparing to take off at Impact Hub at 1117 State St. in Santa Barbara.
“Satellite’s wine list is going to be quickly rotating through and showing people this whole world of smaller wineries that aren’t about big brands, that aren’t about big grape varietals even or big appellations,” Drew Cuddy, the wine aficionado behind the establishment, told Noozhawk.
“It’s about showing people quality wines from wherever they come from.”
Satellite is not an Impact Hub-run bar, though it’s built into its member services and its users receive a discount. But the native of Ontario, Canada, is hoping the wide-open doors will also attract passersby and local businesses.
In addition to a wine retailer, Satellite will offer sandwiches, soups, salads and snacks with menu help from Scarlett Begonia, and will be a caterer at both the State and Yanonali street locations of Impact Hub.
The rustic, space-themed bar is slated to open the first or second week of June after final construction work is finished.
“We’re kind of going for raw materials meets a hand-hewn, hand-made sort of thing,” Cuddy said. “We’re Satellite, so a lot of our decoration inside is space-oriented. A lot of it harkens to the 1950s through ’70s — the initial explorer missions of satellites, up to the Apollo era.”
After growing up on a turkey farm in Ontario, Cuddy moved at age 13 to California, where his dad took up wine imports. He spent summers in Europe with his father’s wine makers before taking up wine and hospitality education and work around California.
In addition to bites and sips, Satellite will offer a wine club and courses through the London-based Wine & Spirit Education Trust.
“What I’m trying to do here is show people that wine can be really fancy, but for the most part you can find incredibly high-quality wines at a price you’re willing to pay to drink them almost every day,” Cuddy said. “And wines that are not made in a factory, and not even made so much in a cellar as they are in the vineyard.”
Lee & Associates releases Quarter 1 report
Real estate company Lee & Associates released its Quarter 1 report for the first three months of 2017.
Topping its largest sales were two apartment complexes in Isla Vista: the 96-unit Breakepointe at 6672 Abrego Road and the 55-unit Coronado at 6626 Picasso Road. They were sold in January for a combined $51.8 million.
Another multi-family development at 401 W. Pine Ave. in Lompoc went for $33.1 million in March, while one at Santa Barbara’s 1826 De la Vina St. went for $18.6 million in February.
Santa Barbara’s retail, office and industrial vacancy rates were reported to be, respectively, 5.5 percent, 4.9 percent and 1.1 percent.
The numbers were notably lower than those in North County. Santa Maria’s were found to be 6.9 percent, 6.1 percent and 3.2 percent, respectively. In Lompoc, they’re 10.1 percent, 5.1 percent and 5.3 percent.
In comparison, the rates in San Luis Obispo and Paso Robles were roughly in between Santa Barbara and North County.
In anticipation of the state issuing business licenses for marijuana businesses starting Jan. 1, Lee & Associates laid out the availability of greenhouses, used for large-scale pot grows, in Carpinteria, which “has historically been home to a number of thriving greenhouse operations.”
There are 624 acres of greenhouse space in the city, with 55 acres on the market with a total asking price of $38.8 million.
Kyle’s Kitchen opens second location
Kyle’s Kitchen at 791 Chapala St. in Santa Barbara is officially celebrating its opening on Saturday with a ribbon cutting starting at 11 a.m.
The burger- and salad-oriented restaurant was previously Silvergreens, a very similar sister brand to Kyle’s Kitchen that has a location in Isla Vista.
Kyle’s Kitchen has a second location at 5723 Calle Real in Goleta, and a third is in the works at Goleta’s Hollister Village.
The establishment is named for a 13-year-old named Kyle, who has special needs. Each month, some of the restaurant’s proceeds go to a special-needs organization it’s partnering with. Over $100,000 has been donated since it opened two years ago, according to management.
The restaurant is open daily from 10:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Goleta’s Allergan building sold
After being listed at $28 million, the 105,000-square-foot Allergan building at 71 S. Los Carneros Road in Goleta has been sold.
Francois DeJohn and Steve Hayes of Hayes Commercial Group brokered the deal, with a local investment team now owning it. The real estate company called it the largest commercial sale on the South Coast in 2017 in terms of both square footage and price.
Allergan, a pharmaceutical company, laid off 1,500 employees worldwide in 2014, including many in Goleta, before leaving town. The building next to Highway 101 and the Village at Los Carneros development was built in 1990 by Raytheon.
Two even larger properties are for sale right now in Goleta, Hayes reports: 7402-7412 Hollister Ave. for $34 million, and 7414-7418 Hollister Ave., which does not have a price listed.
— Noozhawk staff writer Sam Goldman can be reached at sgoldman@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.