Shops, restaurants and apartments coming to historic Atascadero location
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- Centennial Plaza to host $13M multi-use project with retail, dining and housing
- Construction expected to begin in 2026 and take up to four-and-a-half years
- Design preserves historic aesthetics while adding office, event and retail spaces
A new multi-use development is coming to the heart of historic Atascadero, in the city’s Centennial Plaza off Sunken Gardens.
Located at 5901 East Mall, the Centennial Plaza Properties project will bring three stories of restaurant, retail and residential spaces to the currently under-used outdoor space that connects City Hall to Colony Square via the footbridge across Atascadero Creek.
The $13 million project could be completed in as soon as three-and-a-half years, and designs are already well under way.
The local Atascadero-based architecture firm Eddie Herrera Design Studio will bring the project to life for Templeton developer Colin Weyrick of Weyrick Lumber Co.
“It’s going to be a catalyst for what’s to come on East and West Mall,” Herrera told The Tribune.
What will the Centennial Plaza project look like?
As a local architect, Herrera has the added benefit of already being uniquely familiar with downtown Atascadero as he conceived a design that fits in with the rest of the city, he said.
His office sits directly across Sunken Gardens from Centennial Plaza, and Herrera looks at the project site every morning over his Malibu Brew coffee. He can imagine how the new center will look in the space.
Spanning two buildings connected by sky bridges, the project will add a dynamic, multi-use space to Centennial Plaza without losing the heritage of the location.
The approximately 25,000-square-foot development will be engineered around the green-and-gold Centennial Plaza sign and central walkway, expanding the color scheme across the entire building center. The bricks used will compliment the iconic orange brick of City Hall, tying together the new development into the established aesthetic of Sunken Gardens.
“We needed to work around what was already built and kind of make it seamless,” Herrera said.
Planters and bistro lighting will decorate the central walkway, with refurbished and enhanced pavement to match the original stone.
The ground floors will be host to a restaurant, distillery and retail spaces in the front and back of the buildings. Contracts with restaurateurs and business owners will be established closer to the opening date, Herrera said.
The center’s small business spaces could accommodate anything from wine stores and coffee shops to boutiques and bakeries, Herrera said. They also discussed a stop-and-go snack store for students to swing by on their way to nearby Atascadero Middle School.
The restaurant will also have an attached event venue that extends onto the second floor, complete with a rooftop bar and restaurant space. Office spaces will also sit on the second floor on the other side of the central walkway. Herrera’s architecture firm plans to move into the offices, eventually opening up new retail space on West Mall where his office is currently located.
Nine apartments would occupy the third-floor space over a total of 9,917 square-feet.
Atascadero Deputy Director of Economic Development Loreli Cappel said these second-story offices will be a big deal for downtown. As no new offices are allowed to be built on the ground-floor, the second-floor spaces will open up more opportunities for new businesses as well as existing ones.
“It’s going to be more activity, more people, more traffic, more foot traffic, and that’s a really big deal for us,” Cappel told The Tribune. “It’s kind of a pilot project, but it’s really an example of when you build it, you will see the change.”
The third floor of the buildings will be reserved for apartments, bringing a residential community to the Sunken Gardens. With open spaces on either side of the multi-use buildings and restaurants that close by 10 p.m., Herrera said he anticipates these units being quiet places to live.
“I think from a noise standpoint, it’ll be fine,” Herrera said.
Around the back of the buildings, Herrera said the goal is to activate the natural space around the creek and put in a public garden behind the Atascadero Historical Society.
“Maybe folks from the chamber, they don’t know where to go eat, but they on a sunny day, but they want to come over, anybody could just come here and just experience this park,” he said.
With “earth-friendly” features like wood trellises, gravel pathways and raised-wood decking, Herrera said the idea behind the park space was to be “very minimalist” and “very passive” while allowing the park to double as an outdoor event space.
“It’s right up against the creek, so we don’t want to do anything too invasive,” Herrera said. “It wants to be a very natural setting, but it does want to be complimentary to this whole activity.”
With 130 new parking spots recent added to El Camino Real and a large parking lot right next to the project site, Herrera does not anticipate parking congestion issues when the new center comes to life.
“It can be a very special space that’s going to be very unique to Atascadero,” Herrera said. “Not a lot of communities will have (this). That’s going to be the draw.”
How long will the Centennial Plaza project take to build?
Though the designs have been completed, the Centennial Plaza project is still three-and-a-half to four-and-a-half years out from opening.
The city is currently finalizing its agreement with Weyrick, the project applicant, which should happen by the end of the summer, Herrera said.
The project will then move into the production phase, ahead of construction, for the next nine months to a year to secure building permits.
Herrera expects construction on the project to break ground this time next year and last for two to three years. When the buildings are complete, another six months will be needed to make tenet improvements for the various businesses.
If all goes according to plan, residents of Atascadero can expect to enjoy the new and improved Centennial Plaza center by the end of the decade.
