New owners aim to bring more life into Heritage Square properties

Michael Mazzotta called into the Village News excited about everything happening down at Heritage Hall in Fallbrook. In a phone interview with Mazzotta and property owner Henry Belkin, the duo explained some of the additions Belkin had made to the property and what they hope the five-parcel segment of downtown Fallbrook can become.

"Our goal is a very holistic focused environment," Mazzotta said. "We're hoping to bring in craft beer, places for families to go. Henry has a gigantic deck built out there where a musician plays on the weekends. And it just happens to be a little history with the Heritage Hall that is now a yoga studio and fitness studio."

Heritage Hall used to be located on Beech Street was moved over to its current Ash Street location some time ago.

"There are people that remember the day it was trucked over, onto this property," Mazzotta said.

Mazzotta is a commercial property agent who facilitated the purchase of the property and Belkin is the main owner.

"We're both from San Diego and we love Fallbrook and we finally own in Fallbrook," Mazzotta said. "Our goal is we don't want this to be a stereo store, a diner, a car lot, a Heritage Hall. We want to turn this into a kind of community-driven central property. And in the center of this 50,000 square feet of land is an actual area of gathering and music and fun and kids."

Inside Heritage Hall, Belkin said, there are several new businesses.

"If you go there, we have everything from a candle shop to a yoga studio, to a beauty salon, to a barbershop, to a pet grooming place," he said. "So, all the places are basically occupied but it's a very, very different center because it has history in it. You walk inside any of those stores and you feel history because it's so old. We're not trying to change stuff, so we're not bringing any new look, we're just trying to upkeep what we have."

Belkin said they were drawn to the town for a lot of reasons.

"We think that Fallbrook has a lot of charm, Fallbrook has a lot of beautiful real estate away from the hustle and bustle of San Diego," he said. "That's what really took us out there to Fallbrook. We think people are trying to move away from being so compact in one place."

Mazzotta agreed.

"Our big thing is like, when we saw this, we're like, 'Oh yeah, this isn't a retail center,'" he said. "Like the retail centers in our area, they don't have an area where you can walk through the woods in downtown Fallbrook like this. You have a little bit more of a feel – you don't get that just pulling up to a retail strip center with your air-conditioned car, to an air-conditioned retail space. This is outdoors. This is a healthy feel. If we can get candlemakers, if we can get jewelry, if we can get a craft beer, if we can get more of a Julian-style for one retail compound, this would be it."

Last weekend, Belkin had live music playing at the center.

"We tried it out and that was a great success," Belkin said. "We saw lots of people sitting outside keeping their distance on the balcony and on the sidewalk and out in the restaurant which overlooks the patio where the musician played. We just kind of wanted to bring a little life into the center."

For two months, nearly all the stores were closed down due to mandates handed down by the county and state due to the coronavirus pandemic.

"The center has only a few essential stores, all the other ones were nonessential," Belkin said. "So, for two months, there was no life in there. When the musician came in, everybody was thanking us, all the store owners. We're very happy and the people were happy. It was just throwing some smiles on people's faces. That's all."

Mazzotta explained the philosophy behind having the property owner pay for the musicians.

"It's called real estate strategy, owners must do more for their tenants today than ever before," he said. "We think it's very, very robust to do this and not charge anybody. Henry's doing it out of his own pocket. So, there's no money to be made. There are more people at the center. We think it's only for our retail strategy of bringing more of a collective environment and it's working. Our big thing is we want more eyeballs. We want more people; we want more people to retail."

Also, they want to keep the center looking and feeling the way it has for a long time, so they have made improvements, but only structurally.

"Nothing really major (as far as improvements)," Belkin said. "Our goal is to cont

inue to keep it up and keep up that heritage."

Jeff Pack can be reached by email at [email protected].