Ocean Beach Business Center is moving from Santa Monica Avenue at the end of August and reopening on Sept. 1 in a Newport Avenue mall to provide enhanced services to local residents.
“Our lease was about to run out here (4876 Santa Monica Ave.) and we’ve always wanted to be on the main drag of OB, on Newport Avenue,” said Jo Peregoy, who runs OBBC along with her husband Chris. “The move will allow us to grow and give us the ability to spread out our mailboxes for our clients, giving them access to their mailboxes after hours to get their mail when we’re not here. It is a big win-win for everybody.”
“We got feedback from our mailbox customers that they wanted access to their mailboxes outside of normal business hours,” said Chris. “In our current building, that really was not an option for us. But it will be at our new location.”
The Peregoys are going to be one of the new tenants in the indoor mall at 4967 Newport Ave., Suites 10 and 12 next door to Samesun Ocean Beach youth hostel. “We’ll be in the back of the mall,” said Chris adding they are working on adding lighting to that part of the mall. “We’re going to be in there mid-to-late August. On Sept. 1, we’re going to have our grand reopening.”
The Peregoys came from Phoenix searching for the ideal vacation spot for their dog, before they had their daughter, and found it in OB. They purchased OBBC in September 2017. Jo noted it was a big transition.
“We bought it blind through Chris’ uncle who was in a networking group and approached us about the business being for sale,” said Jo pointing out she and Chris both came from unrelated work backgrounds in the hospitality industry. “It was sink or swim,” she added.
“We were definitely faking it until we were making it,” joked Chris about their employment makeover.
Jo said they soon figured out what they wanted – and needed – to do with their new business. “We really wanted to provide good customer service with a down-home feel, real mom and pop,” she said. “We were able to take a business that only had a few options and grow it out.”
The couple’s full-service store provides an array of copying, printing, and shipping services, plus offering supplies, marketing materials, flyers and brochures, bulk mailers, binding, lamination, and custom-designed orders. OBBC handles single-page print jobs, as well as being a main shipping center. They have FedEx, UPS, and the post office nearby at their disposal.
“We wanted to grow the printing aspect along with our mailbox customers, who are not only based here but all over the world,” said Jo.
OBBC is working closely with its mailbox customers on the transition over to their new workspace in September. “Our clients couldn’t just do a change of address form, that doesn’t work because of the type of business we are,” said Chris. “We needed to have all of our mailbox clients correspond directly to get their addresses changed. That was our biggest hurdle. We’re still working with the US Postal Service to make that transition as seamless as possible.”
Chris added they are working on their address transition with Ocean Beach Post Office. “They are giving us a six-month buffer, when normally when you change your address, they forward everything to your new address,” he said.
Jo said it will also be nice to collaborate with neighboring businesses in their new mall. “We’re excited about planning events together that we could all work on,” agreed Chris. “It will be nice to have that kind of atmosphere.”
There is one other “really” interesting thing about the Ocean Beach Business Center’s impending move.
“The day of our grand opening will also be coinciding with our fifth anniversary, which is pretty cool,” noted Chris.
