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Company to Make a Scene Downtown

GOOD TIME DESIGN LLC

CEO: Ty Hauter.

Financial data: Not disclosed.

No. of local employees: 500.

Headquarters: Downtown San Diego.

Year founded: 2006.

Company description: Operates several local entertainment venues and restaurants; also provides consulting services.

Key factors for success: Company emphasizes locations in urban hot spots, geared to younger consumers.

Good Time Design LLC is betting big on a future where new residents now filling downtown San Diego condos, and expected to occupy several apartments in the works, will need a place in the neighborhood to dine, socialize and catch some live music.

“You’re starting to see more people living down there full time, and they want to have more things to do near where they live,” says Ty Hauter, chief executive and owner of the local company that operates downtown venues such as Bub’s at the Ballpark, Double Deuce, Knotty Barrel Gastropub and The Tipsy Crow.

Since starting the development and consulting firm in 2006, Hauter estimates the company has invested $9 million in its venues, including taverns in Encinitas and Pacific Beach and its next project now in progress: the conversion of a one-time East Village trucking company building into a new restaurant and live entertainment center.

Not Your Father’s ‘Truck Stop’

Opening this spring in the historic Culy warehouse on Seventh Avenue, spanning around 20,000 square feet near Petco Park, will be the nostalgia-driven Lucky’s Lunch Counter, to debut by late March or early April; and Block No. 16 Union & Spirits, a multilevel entertainment venue that will accommodate live music and other special events starting around May.

Hauter said Block No. 16 is equipped with sound and video technology to handle large-scale musical productions — including live bands and DJs — as well as corporate events. He has already begun taking reservations for gatherings, including one large-scale event tied to Comic-Con 2012.

The venue will feature a 35-by-25-foot LED screen wall, which the company touts as being larger than Petco Park’s Jumbotron.

“It will be able to accommodate some high-end musical shows, like you would have at the House of Blues,” said Hauter. The venue is under construction in the building that opened in 1914 as Culy Trucking Co., a merchandise-shipping firm led by Frank O. Culy.

The site in recent years has served as a live event staging area, though not at the same scale of Block No. 16, Hauter said.

Drawing a Crowd

Hauter, who also consults for other venue developers around the U.S., said his establishments generally cater to crowds ranging in age range from their early 20s to early 40s. That includes young professionals who like to have lots of social spots within walking distance from where they live.

The new businesses are among recent signs of a retail recovery for downtown San Diego, which was hit hard by the economic downturn.

Brokerage firm Cushman & Wakefield notes that downtown’s overall retail absorption continues to improve as the economy rebounds. The 2011 year-end retail vacancy rate for downtown was 10.7 percent, down from 11.4 percent at midyear 2011 and 12.2 percent at the end of 2010.

In the past year, retail vacancy downtown has gone from the highest seen in the past decade, to the lowest seen since 2008, according to Cushman.

Among downtown neighborhoods, however, East Village still posts the highest vacancy rate, at 18.9 percent. The brokerage firm notes that one element that may be encouraging new development is downtown rents that are now very competitive with other regions of San Diego County.

“The rents down there in some cases are lower than they were 10 years ago,” said Bill Shrader, senior director of Cushman & Wakefield’s Urban Property Group in San Diego.

“The biggest challenge for the retail market continues to be the lack of capital funding available to new business owners, as the market has been dominated by independent entrepreneurial operators,” he said.

In recent months, several national-chain restaurants like Subway, Chipotle Mexican Grill and IHOP Express have set up new locations in downtown San Diego. Shrader said retail and restaurant growth will likely be helped by the recent recovery of the downtown condo market, where several towers have completed sales previously stalled by the recession.

“There are the condo residents, and you also have several apartment projects breaking ground downtown starting later this year,” Shrader said.

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