The prospect of saving any part of the Pea Soup Andersen's building in Buellton is seemingly slipping away, one decision at a time.

Last week, members of the Buellton City Council met to discuss whether any part of the historic building could be or should be rescued or relocated. The century-old landmark provided a template for the great California road trip stop and put the gateway town to the Santa Ynez Valley on the map.

While the general sentiment from the City Council was that something needs to be done to honor a critical piece of the state's history, the current suggestions for what to actually do with the building were rebuffed. Pea Soup Andersen's, which opened in 1924 and, at the height of its popularity, reportedly served 2 million bowls of its eponymous soup per year, is slated to be destroyed. In its place, a proposed art deco-style development, including 6,800 square feet of office space, a 5,734-square-foot gym and a central courtyard, is in the works.

The parcel's current owner Ed St. George filed an application with the city to demolish the structure, but the city still has to figure out how to honor or preserve, in some way, part of the soon-to-be-felled historic structure. At the same time, the property is required to go through a historical resources assessment and California Environmental Quality Act review before any demolition permit can be issued.

Buellton city manager Scott Wolfe told members of the City Council that "the demolition of the building is kinda driving this potential need for mitigation."

Then, there are new questions about what - if anything - will be built on the Pea Soup Andersen's site. When asked by members of the City Council about what's being planned, the city manager's answers about the project's current status failed to provide much clarity.

"We don't have any kind of plans or an application or anything of the sort," Wolfe said. "The prior conceptual plans that were kind of thrown out there have been walked back. It's taking a different approach from what we understand. But our primary concern right now with that site is less what it's going to turn into and more, ‘How do we make it safe?'"

Pea Soup Andersen's closed suddenly in January 2024, just months shy of its 100th anniversary. Its immediate and long-term future remained in doubt in the months to follow. That September, SFGATE reported that Pea Soup Andersen's restaurant and lounge, as well as the adjoining parking lot, had been purchased by a company called SBID LLC c/o Ed St. George for $4.95 million.

St. George, a landlord and developer, is a well-known and polarizing figure throughout the region. He owns St. George and Associates, a mega-renter to college students in Santa Barbara and Isla Vista. The Yelp page for his property management company has only 1.5 stars. St. George and his family relocated to the Santa Ynez Valley in 2021, and since then, he's become involved in several high-profile development projects.

One of his biggest current endeavors is a project in the middle of downtown Solvang called 1704 Mission Hotel and Cottages, also known as the Lilisod Hotel. It occupies a highly visible corner in the Danish-themed village's downtown square at the intersection of two main streets and features a total of nine structures. The property resembles a scaled-down version of a whimsical northern European thoroughfare.

The project stalled out last August after the city of Solvang issued a stop work order, with city staff alleging that they found that St. George had strayed from the approved project plan. St. George in turn filed a civil lawsuit earlier this year against the city seeking about $1 million in damages.

Amid all this uncertainty, the Buellton City Council now must weigh what to do with Pea Soup Andersen's. The question posed last Thursday by city staff is whether a piece of the old building can be added to a nearby median that is currently being redone on the Avenue of Flags, the Pea Soup Andersen's frontage road.

Council members, while largely in favor of some type of preservation or permanent marker to honor the building, didn't feel that moving part of it to a median was the right choice.

"While I'm a huge supporter of preserving whatever we can, I don't think that is the place for it to go if we do preserve it because I don't think it fits with all the plans and all the progress that we've made thus far," council member Elysia Lewis said. "And I don't want to see that progress stopped."

Council member John Sanchez said it's a "nice thought" to preserve part of the building, but he didn't think it was "feasible to do anything to move a building."

"It would never work," he continued. "It would never ... pass any kind of inspection."

Instead, he suggested another plan: "some kind of plaque" to memorialize Pea Soup Andersen's, rather than "waste a bunch of money trying to save a piece of it."

After council members turned down the prospect of moving a part of the old building onto a median, Buellton planning director Andrea Keefer said staff would return in future meetings with additional options to possibly honor Pea Soup Andersen's. City staff will also present a historical resources report and updates about the project's demolition permit in the months ahead.

For his part, council member Hudson Hornick called for "a unified plan."

"I would like to have clarity on what, at least, the developer's thinking [at] that site," he said. "But this? I don't think we need to do this."

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This article originally published at California town chooses to not save historic roadside icon.