The new owners of the Santa Fe Depot want to turn the 102-year-old landmark into the go-to place in downtown San Diego. They envision:

A first-class restaurant in the waiting room.

A food court in the plaza to the south.

A boutique hotel or creative office spaces upstairs.

A rooftop bar overlooking the bay.

The rooftop “Santa Fe” sign embellished with neon as in the 1940s.

The Santa Fe sign may be relit with neon and the tiled towers to the right will be seismically strengthened and repaired under plans in he works by the new owners. To left of the rooftop sign is an outdoor space that could be outfitted as an outdoor bar or event venue. (K.C. Alfred / U-T )

The Santa Fe Depot, an iconic landmark that few people visit, is about to go big time.

Its new owners, a father-and-son team previously focused on retail strip centers and apartments, imagine much more for the 102-year station at the foot of Broadway.


Bankim “Ben” Shah, 58, and his son Alex, 23, are moving to relight the blue “Santa Fe” sign with neon that was removed years ago.

They talk of locating a boutique hotel or creative offices in the long-vacant second floor where railroad workers once overnighted between shifts.

They want to enliven the waiting room with a restaurant, turning the southern fountain plaza into a food court and reopening the upstairs former railroad workers overnight quarters into a boutique hotel or creative offices.

All these hopes and dreams came out of conversations with the Shahs, their architect, David Marshall of Heritage Architecture & Planning, and their real estate broker, Kipp Gstettenbauer of Voit Real Estate Services.


They plan to spend all of 2018 examining the possibilities and negotiating with Amtrak.

Then they’ll move forward with an estimated $2 million in repairs, and consider new uses that make the most sense. The goal is to have the depot ready for its new future by 2021.

“That wow factor — we want to bring it back, the glory days of the depot,” Ben Shah said.

The depot’s future has been uncertain for more than 40 years, ever since the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe announced plans to replace it with twin office towers. The city leaned on the railroad to keep the 1915 structure intact and it sat largely unchanged as the old transfer warehouses were replaced by high-rise condo towers and the industrial waterfront became a tourist mecca.


Architect David Marshall, center, talks with Ben Shaw, left, and his son, Alex, who recently purchased the Santa Fe Depot. (K.C. Alfred / U-T )

Now the Shahs are considering these changes:

Depot towers: The two towers show some signs of damage, possibly due to minor earthquakes that have occurred over the last century. Architect Marshall said moisture may have seeped between the cracks and compromised some of the steel framework. The towers may have to be partially dismantled to repair the damage and then restored. Additional seismic strengthening could be added between the hollow towers and the terracotta exterior. The tile domes seem in good shape, he said.

The two towers show some signs of damage, possibly due to minor earthquakes that have occurred over the last century. Architect Marshall said moisture may have seeped between the cracks and compromised some of the steel framework. The towers may have to be partially dismantled to repair the damage and then restored. Additional seismic strengthening could be added between the hollow towers and the terracotta exterior. The tile domes seem in good shape, he said. Restrooms: The men’s and women’s restrooms are larger than necessary and could be rebuilt next to each other and reduced in size.

The men’s and women’s restrooms are larger than necessary and could be rebuilt next to each other and reduced in size. Rooftop bar: An outdoor space of about 3,500 square feet could be redesigned to accommodate a rooftop bar or event space for about 300 people.

An outdoor space of about 3,500 square feet could be redesigned to accommodate a rooftop bar or event space for about 300 people. Forecourt: The depot originally had an open forecourt enclosed by arcaded archways on the south side of the property. It could be recreated but in a slightly smaller arrangement, since San Diego Trolley tracks take up some of the former forecourt space; a parking lot replaced the forecourt in the 1950s and a fountain and plaza are there now. The space could be glassed in and covered or left open to the elements and filled with a food court similar to Liberty Station’s Liberty Public Market.

The depot originally had an open forecourt enclosed by arcaded archways on the south side of the property. It could be recreated but in a slightly smaller arrangement, since San Diego Trolley tracks take up some of the former forecourt space; a parking lot replaced the forecourt in the 1950s and a fountain and plaza are there now. The space could be glassed in and covered or left open to the elements and filled with a food court similar to Liberty Station’s Liberty Public Market. Waiting Room: An upscale restaurant could installed in the main space under the historic chandeliers with a kitchen occupying the southeast corner of the building.

An upscale restaurant could installed in the main space under the historic chandeliers with a kitchen occupying the southeast corner of the building. Amtrak ticketing operation: The passenger railroad, whose lease expires in early-2021, currently occupies the entire building and now needs decides how much space it will need and what rent to pay.

The passenger railroad, whose lease expires in early-2021, currently occupies the entire building and now needs decides how much space it will need and what rent to pay. Hotel or office: Gstettenbauer said several office and hotel companies have contacted him about turning the upstairs space into a boutique hotel of about 30 small rooms or creative office space.

The initial buyer had the property in escrow for 30 days and wanted an extension that could have dragged on for six months, said Gstettenbauer, who represented the previous owner, ProLogis.

The Shahs offered a $2 million, nonrefundable deposit and were willing to complete the transaction in 15 days. They paid $8.65 million for the property.


“They were not the first to be chosen, but they made it to the final round,” Gstettenbauer said.

Ben Shah, whose expertise was in operating about 250 low-cost apartment projects and strip commercial centers, grew up in Mumbai, India, one of 11 siblings.

“The ocean front attracted me since I was a child,” he said, and that memory inspired him to acquire the depot

Some of his siblings first migrated to San Diego in the 1950s and became engineers and doctors, and in 1981, he was the last of his generation to move here. His first venture was a photo-processing outlet at Sixth and University avenues in Hillcrest and then he began investing in real estate.


His wife, Nita, applied her financial skills learned at USC, UCLA and San Diego State University to become the financial overseer for the company, All-Property Management, and their children pitched in as well.

“When I was a kid, what I’d do was hop in the car with my dad on weekends and go around to different properties around and he’d teach me different things,” Alex Shah said.

He began with cleanup duties, graduated to simple plumbing jobs and came to learn the little details that go into building “pride of ownership” in properties.

“Anything you know from the ground up, it’s always important,” he said.


At the peak of their business, they owned about 250 apartments and for the most part maintained good relations with their tenants, Alex Shah said. He encouraged tenants to call him in the middle of the night if they needed an emergency repair.

KPBS ran stories in 2015 and 2016 about alleged code violations at Shah properties, but Alex said the tenants, some of whom were behind in rent, called the city, not him.

“Anytime our tenants needed something, we treated them like family,” Alex said.

The Shahs have since sold their apartments and now own about 25 commercial properties, including the Gelson’s Market in Pacific Beach and the Bank of America building in Coronado.


Chuck Klein, a Cushman & Wakefield broker who has known the Shahs for years and recently represented them on various acquisitions, called Shah “honest, straightforward” and a stickler for details.

“He is really excited about doing something that will be considered somewhat of a legacy that is different from his public perception,” Klein said.

Ben Tashakorian, a broker at Marcus & Millichap, was equally complimentary of Ben Shah, whom he represented in a number of other transactions.

“He’s just been a phenomenal person, with a phenomenal family, a real kind of ‘giving’ guy,” Tashakorian said.


When asked his advice on buying the depot, he said he told Shah, “You can’t cut corners on this one. This is the Ellis Island of San Diego.”

The Shahs said they realize they have taken on a legendary landmark.

“We want to just make it a place where people can hang out and enjoy it,” Alex Shah said. “We feel extremely responsible, which is why we took it on and we think we have the right people in place to be responsible for it.”

Beyond that, he said he and two friends spent much of Thanksgiving Day handing out sleeping bags, pillows and sweatshirts to the homeless huddled around the depot. It was something he did while attending San Diego State University, where he majored in business management, finance and real estate.


“Obviously, for a lot of these guys, it’s tough around this time of the year,” he said. “I wish I could do more, honestly.”

Business


roger.showley@sduniontribune.com; (619) 293-1286; Twitter: @rogershowley