A fter recently buying the bank-owned Design Center, The Orosco Group is planning to bring business to the vacant first floor of the Sand City complex. “We are currently in discussion with several restaurants, art galleries and design studios who are enticed by the concept that Sand City remains a blank canvas on which entrepreneurs can test their ideas,” says Patrick Orosco of the Monterey development group.

With financial backing from Lyles Diversified, Urban Atelier, a company managed by The Orosco Group, reportedly purchased the four-story loft building for $6 million. The buy brings new potential to the floundering development, which was envisioned as the centerpiece of Sand City’s live/work redevelopment plan. “I think they would attract the type of interest that we need to keep that building alive,” says Sand City Mayor David Pendergrass.

In May, First National Bank of Central California foreclosed on the Design Center and took possession of the property. The developer owed the bank $23.6 million, in yet another casualty of the recession and real estate downturn.

In September, Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula dropped its offer to buy the Design Center because its plans for office uses were incompatible with city use restrictions. Orosco says his company’s plans for the mixed-use building will have to be vetted by the City Council and go through the conditional use permit process.

Pendergrass, who took a hard line against CHOMP and any hospital-related uses at the redevelopment site, seems open to having a restaurant in the building. “Maybe it will make up for whatever happens to the Ol’ Factory Café,” he says. As for art galleries, Pendergrass says: “They better be taxable.”

The Oroscos previousy developed Edgewater Shopping Center and own an 11-acre site around south Tioga targeted for bohemian revitalization. Orosco says the group will soon rename the Design Center, originally envisioned to have high-end home design showrooms, and make “alterations to the color, landscaping and architectural features of the building in an effort to communicate a more contemporary look and feel.”

The ownership change won’t immediately affect the tenants of the top two floors, he says, but the 31 condos will eventually be sold after improvements are complete.