Groundbreaking is expected soon on 10 West at Bird Rock, the new name for the former Bird Rock Station, which envisions a mixed-use project with ground-level retail and ten condominiums above the street.
“We expect to break ground in the next 30 days,” said Kelly Hiltscher, director of sales and marketing for developer ColRich. “We do not have any idea, at this time, who will be leasing the space. Our preferred type of tenant would be a boutique market, but that has not been secured yet. We start construction later this year, with the building offering its first move-ins in September 2015.”
Hiltscher said the project’s ten units will range from approximately 700 to 1,300 square feet, offering choices between one- and two-bedrooms with private balconies.
“The expected price range is anticipated from the mid $600,000s to the high $800,000s,” Hiltscher said. A secure underground parking garage will provide each residence with two-car tandem parking and convenient elevator access to the homes upstairs, said ColRich’s website, at colrich.com/communities/265/.
The website says project residents “can retreat to a private rooftop terrace to take in panoramic views of the Pacific Ocean,” adding that the development is “appealing to active homeowners who enjoy the lock-and-leave lifestyle.”
The project’s previous developer, Michael Krambs, is still involved in that “he has the opportunity to purchase the retail from ColRich,” Hiltscher said. Krambs had previously wanted to build 11 condos on two stories above a gourmet grocery store/deli with underground parking in the heart of the community’s commercial strip.
“I was looking for the right kind of high-end retail and real estate for the property,” said Krambs, who noted he sold the project to ColRich “with an agreement to acquire the completed retail from them.”
Krambs added that the new ColRich project no longer has subterranean parking but rather “surface parking on the back side of the property.”
Krambs noted he first proposed the project in 2005, when he presented preliminary plans drawn up by local architect Mark Lyon to Bird Rock Community Council. But Krambs’ project called for three stories, one more than some neighbors wanted, which touched off a “no-three stories” movement with yard signs scattered communitywide.
In 2013, a two-story version of mixed-use Bird Rock Station, a project that drew strident opposition when originally proposed as three stories, passed by a unanimous vote of the Planning Commission without public opposition.