OB Plaza is demolished.
And some Obecians are distressed the building complex’s ’50s-era architecture is being replaced.
But the project architect, F.L. Hope Planning and Architecture, promises that what’s going in the commercial space on the corner of Cable Street and Santa Monica Avenue will be both practical and aesthetic.
Ocean Beach Planning Group chair John Ambert, an architect, said losing the existing building was regrettable.
“It is a shame the project had to be demolished,” Ambert said. “The OBPG always advocates for preservation and rehabilitation of our existing building stock, before demolition and ground-up new construction. We hope the project team will implement a modern design style that compliments the unique character of our beach community.” 
“We tried to do a remodel, but we couldn’t the way the building is built,” said F.L. Hope. “Remodeling would have involved taking the entire roof off – and that would have been really hard.”
Hope noted the style of OB Plaza, as originally rendered by architect Jim Wheeler in the late ’50s, was “not unique, [Wheeler] did them all over the place, including on Rosecrans.”
Discussing OB Plaza’s fate, Hope said, “The days of the small clinics are going. With the new kind of express healthcare, there really isn’t a lot of need for small little clinic space.”
Ocean Beach Planning Group approved plans for OB Plaza’s redevelopment in 2015. Hope said all necessary building permits and approval have been acquired for the project.
The architect said the new complex is being built on spec, so architecturally, it has been designed to allow, whichever tenants ultimately move in, to customize their spaces.
“It’s a shell,” said Hope of the project’s construction, which is likely to begin by the end of this summer and last nine months to a year culminating in early 2018. “The exterior will be finished, and the interior will be drywalls.”
Hope classified the project as “storefront retail, with indoor-outdoor space and patios fronting the street. There could be as many as nine different tenants – or as few as two or three.”
The project will be a boon to the surrounding neighborhood, said Hope.
“The big thing is we want to keep that street alive, pedestrian-friendly, with a walk-up, Newport Street-type of development, but a little more modern,” he said adding, “We’re providing parking onsite.”