Noozhawk: Carpinteria Office Building to Become Senior Living Facility

Steadfast Companies pays $10.7 for office space on Carpinteria Avenue that will be converted to 76-bed facility

A new 76-bed senior living facility is coming to Carpinteria after a local private investor sold a Carpinteria Avenue property for $10.7 million.

Lee & Associates Central Coast principals Stephen Leider and Clarice Clarke announced this week that they represented the buyer in the deal, which was Steadfast Carpinteria Senior, LLC — an affiliate of Irvine-based real estate investment management company Steadfast Companies.

Once the remaining tenants are out of the 51,585-square-foot, two-story office building at 5464 Carpinteria Ave., the property built in 1984 as office space will be gutted and transformed over the course of about a year, Leider said.

An exact timeframe for construction wasn’t available.

“There’s a growing demand for that,” Leider said of assisted living facilities. “This building happened to work out perfectly. The city was very accommodating.”

Steadfast Companies was founded in 1994 and has a real estate portfolio valued at more than $3 billion — one that includes thousands of apartments in the United States and Mexico for individuals, families and seniors but no assisted living accommodations until now, Leider said.

The seller was a local private investor who originally acquired the property in 2005, sold it in 2008, then re-acquired it in 2014 before subsequently selling it to Steadfast this year, according to Radius Commercial Real Estate & Investments, which represented the seller but wouldn’t disclose the name.

As an office building, the Carpinteria Avenue property saw varied success, Leider said, formerly leasing to Microsoft and others but at one point was down to 75-80 percent vacant.

In order to repurpose the property, Steadfast went before the Carpinteria Planning Commission in May, where members approved the conditional use and coastal development permits necessary to allow conversation.

The facility was already in a proper zoning area.

Steadfast Carpinteria Senior will be the first assisted living facility within city limits, according to a city planner.

The residential care facility will include 70 units with 76 beds. Fifty-seven of those beds will be in an assisted living wing, while the other 19 will be in a memory care wing for those with Alzheimer’s and ALS, according to a city staff report.

Units will range in size from 370 to 782 square feet, parking will be cut from 187 spaces to 176, and the licensed facility will also include a social room, fitness center and theater.

Steadfast Carpinteria Senior told the city it plans to hire 44 full-time employees and 10 part-time staffers.