SANTA MARIA – This farm field on the busy corner of College and Betteravia on the southern side of Santa Maria could become home to the city's newest shopping center.
The developers of the massive Crossroads Shopping Center, right around the corner, plan to ask the city for permission to finish the un-built portion of the big box center bringing even more storefronts.
"This is what we need in Santa Maria", says Dave Cross with the Santa Maria Chamber of Commerce, "our retail base is extremely important to the city in terms of sales tax revenue, so this is a good development for Santa Maria, and the Crossroads Center."
"Very frustrating, very frustrating", says Angie Chaparro, owner of Anthony's Jewelers in the Town Center West shopping center in downtown Santa Maria, "it's one of the largest in town, I wish they would bring something, anything here."
Chaparro and her fellow longtime tenants in Town Center West wonder why the city doesn't do something to fill the long-empty Mervyn's Department Store space or get the long-stalled remodeling of the Town Center East Mall completed before approving new commercial construction elsewhere in town.
"They never think of the small merchant", Chaparral says of city planners, "there's evidence everywhere, shopping centers are dying, I mean they've got empty spaces everywhere in Santa Maria."
The city Planning Commission is expected to discuss the latest shopping center project proposals at its next regular meeting on Wednesday.
