It’s just before noon on a cloudless October weekday and Santa Barbara’s Funk Zone is in reset mode.

Weekend crowds that come to the popular converted industrial neighborhood to eat, drink and shop are replaced by the sounds of nearby white foam crashing onto the shore, broken up every so often by the approaching rumble and piercing mechanical screech of train brakes.

It’s nearly perfect.

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Or, at least, it is for now.

“I mean, it’s one of my favorite areas,” David Segan, an East Coast transplant who lives and works in the Funk Zone, told SFGATE as he dismounted his bike in front of Kiva Cowork, a shared work space in the neighborhood. “I don’t know, I always thought it was a little funny. It was called the ‘Funk Zone’ because of wineries and new-build stuff. But it’s still one of my favorite places, the breweries, food shops, all walkable.”

The Funk Zone area of wineries and restaurants, Santa Barbara, California, USA.

But one of the things on the top of Segan’s mind, along with just about every other resident, worker, business owner or even passerby in this converted industrial waterfront district, is a huge change on the horizon.

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A proposed 250-room hotel featuring high-end amenities like roof deck, two spas, and a library and media salon, would redefine the district and change the aesthetic to one more closely in line with some of the coastal town’s most exclusive resorts.

The project would also remove a number of buildings that stretch between Highway 101 and the railroad tracks, including artists’ work spaces. Originally, the property owners looked to develop the parcel into a hotel, aquarium and a 450,000-square-foot public market. Today, the plans for the hotel remain.

One of several beer gardens located within Santa Barbara’s industrial neighborhood, the Funk Zone. Pictured here on Oct. 9, 2024.

Thus far, Santa Barbara’s industrial neighborhood, the Funk Zone, pictured here on Oct. 9, 2024, has dodged major development. All of that is likely about to change with the insertion of a high-end 250-room hotel.

The proposed redevelopment of the 4.5-acre site is nothing new. The plans originally came about in 1983 and were approved by then-mayor, now planning commissioner, Sheila Lodge. Plans to build a hotel were resurrected 5 years ago. But many in the area are now looking at this parcel through a different lens, one filtered through Santa Barbara’s housing crisis.

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