Rancher Melvin Dalidio rakes wind-scattered garbanzo bean stalks, corn field and Madonna Road Shopping Center in background. Garbanzo harvest on the Dalidio Ranch in September 1972.
Larry Jamison
dmiddlecamp@thetribunenews.com
The San Luis Ranch development between Madonna Road and Highway 101 has opened model homes and just held a drawing for a buyer who qualifies for a discounted housing program.
The development was a long time in the making.
Local residents will recall that for many years rancher Ernie Dalidio had tried to get development plans approved for the property.
The idea to develop the property dates back to even a generation before — 50 years ago Melvin Dalidio could look across his fields in 1972 at the new Madonna Plaza and see the future.
Over a decade later, the Central Coast Plaza, an enclosed mall, was built in 1985-86. It had the Gottschalk’s department store at the north and because San Luis Obispo insisted, the Park Suite Hotel (now Embassy Suites) at the south. The accepted wisdom was that malls needed at least two major anchor stores to be viable.
Penny’s had been interested in a new location outside of downtown, but San Luis Obispo jealously guarded the downtown and forbid another large retail anchor at the opposite end of the mall.
The doomed mall was later demolished and replaced with the SLO Promenade.
This unbylined brief ran in The Telegram-Tribune on Sept. 16, 1972:
Melvin Dalidio keeps an eye on cascading garbanzo beans during harvest on the Dalidio Ranch in September 1972. Larry Jamison dmiddlecamp@thetribunenews.com
Winds of change in the bean field
Garbanzo beans are being harvested today where developers envision a shopping center and housing project tomorrow.
Dust swirls in the warm sun as the heavy rig moves along the windrows, scooping up the fallen stalks and spewing the golden beans into a truck.
Ranch owner Melvin Dalidio moves ahead of the machines, raking the stalks back into neat rows were the wind has disturbed them.
Harvester moves along garbanzo windrows at Dalidio Ranch in September 1972. Larry Jamison dmiddlecamp@thetribunenews.com
As he rakes he looks over the green stalks of a corn field at the Madonna Road Plaza Shopping Center.
A 20-acre shopping mall has been proposed approximately where the corn field is, and 1,169 housing units are planned where Dalidio’s garbanzos grow.
David Middlecamp is a photojournalist and third-generation Cal Poly graduate who has covered the Central Coast region since the 1980s. A career that began developing and printing black-and-white film now includes an FAA-certified drone pilot license. He also writes the history column “Photos from the Vault.”
