The long-awaited arrival of Amazon to downtown Santa Barbara has come, but it won’t be in the form of a retail store.
Instead, the tech giant has renovated the old Saks Off-Fifth Store on the corner of Carillo and State Streets into a home for their Alexa engineers.
Business analysts say that about 250 software engineers will be coming to the site. Their presence is expected to be a big boost to the regional stores, restaurants, breweries, and other businesses in the downtown corridor that have been lacking customers.
Many of the employees have already secured housing in the Santa Barbara region.
The remodel of the building has had a relatively quick turnaround, though crews have been inside since the middle of last year.
Amazon says that it is still hiring for positions in that facility.
