SAN MARCOS — The former Sears site along San Marcos Boulevard, which has sat vacant for 15 years, will be transformed into a 71-unit residential development with accompanying commercial space after the Planning Commission approved project plans on Monday.
Housing developer Lennar Homes proposed the project, which it says will complement its neighboring development at the former Restaurant Row site that was approved last year.
The 2.7-acre lot has been eyed for residential development for years but never broke ground after The McDonald Group received entitlements for a separate 82-unit development in 2018.
San Marcos Development Group LLC has owned the property since 2021, and Lennar is currently in escrow to obtain it.
“It came to us as an opportunity for acquisition in the middle of last year,” said Lennar Director of Entitlement David Shepherd. “We thought, let’s see what we can do, given what we’ve done with Restaurant Row.”
The Planning Commission approved the project on Monday by a 6-1 vote. Since the application does not include a rezone, specific plan or General Plan amendment, it only requires commission approval and does not need to go before the City Council.
The project includes for-sale condominium units ranging from one to three bedrooms. A mixed-use building fronting San Marcos Boulevard will include 17 two-story townhomes above a mixed-use first story, with eight separate buildings behind it holding 54 three-story attached rowhomes.
On the first floor of the street-facing building, there will be around 3,000 square feet of resident amenities and another 3,000 square feet of commercial space for lease, with no commercial tenants identified at this time.
Parking was a topic of scrutiny at the meeting, as Lennar proposed making around one-third of the project’s 161 parking spaces into tandem spots, in which cars park directly behind each other. Lennar requested and was granted a conditional use permit exempting them from the city’s standard 10% limit on tandem spaces in a project.
Planning commissioners said tandem parking poses unique challenges and expressed concerns about resident and visitor parking spilling over to the Regal Cinemas site directly east. Commissioner Kevin Norris said the HOA will need to enforce parking rules and not leave it to the theater to deal with it.
“Cars are gonna be parked wherever they can, and I think a lot of them are gonna wind up in the theater,” Norris said.
Shepherd said the HOA will have a parking management plan but that they can’t control people who choose to break the rules. He added that tandem parking was necessary to achieve the desired density and that the garages are essentially the only areas where people can park onsite.
Commissioner Lionel Saulsberry said he would like to see more communication with the movie theater to prevent potential issues.
“I’m glad that something is going to be happening with that Sears building, but I do have concerns about the parking,” Saulsberry said.
While the Sears project is separate from the Restaurant Row project, Lennar said the two sites will be connected with shared courtyards, walking paths, and a shared entry driveway. There will also be improved pedestrian, bike and vehicle connectivity, and the two sites will likely have a combined HOA.
Lennar will also complete improvements to San Marcos Boulevard as part of the project, including six on-street parking spaces, an improved sidewalk, and a local access lane for bikers and cars.
“Overall, I like the fact that there’s gonna be some degree of coordination between this and the Restaurant Row site … There’s not a solid brick wall between the two. Being able to coordinate between the two sites will make everything feel better overall,” said Commissioner Christopher Carroll.
The Restaurant Row project, known as The Row, will construct 202 housing units, over 10,000 square feet of commercial space, and a 1.5-acre park with a skate park and pickleball courts. City leaders approved these plans in late 2023, hoping that they would invigorate the area after the decline of the once-thriving dining and entertainment hub established in the 1970s.
Shepherd said Lennar hopes to have homes at the Sears site open and for sale by late 2025 or early 2026 and that access may be phased with The Row project.
