Plans for La Entrada, the long-awaited hotel and condominium project on lower State Street, took another step forward Sept. 26 as Santa Barbara’s Historic Landmarks Commission approved changes to the 123-unit development’s design.

The commission gave the hotel’s developer, 35 State Street Hotel Partners, the go-ahead to alter plans for sidewalk and street-lighting designs adjacent to the property. The partnership, led by Michael Rosenfeld of Los Angeles-based investment and development company Next Century Associates, bought the historic Hotel Californian and two neighboring plots of land for an undisclosed amount in January 2011. Since then, Hotel Californian has been torn down. And although very little visual progress has been made on the now-empty plots at 35, 36 and 118 State St., the hotel partnership has said it is on track to meet planning and construction deadlines set by the city.

“It doesn’t look like we’ve done anything, but we’ve done a lot,” Doug Fell, a Santa Barbara land use attorney who has represented the project’s last three owners, told the Business Times in February. “There’s no question that we’re on schedule.”

The developer has plans to build a mixed-use development on the three parcels, consisting of 114 hotel units, nine timeshare units, 21,654 square feet of commercial space and 243 underground and above-ground parking spaces, according to city planning documents.