Santa Cruz Changes 88 - Replacing the not-so-old

Shown above are two views of a multi-family housing project at 314 Jessie Street, now (2024) under construction. The upper image is an architectural rendering that replaces the previous buildings with a drawing of the proposed replacements. The lower image shows the same scene before demolition of the previous buildings. The recently-completed development at 350 Ocean Street (Changes 13) is visible at far left in both images.

There has been very little undeveloped land within the Santa Cruz city limits for quite some time, so most of today's development projects share a starting condition - existing structures that have to be removed to make way for the new construction. After a new building has been in place for a few years, it's easy to forget what was on that site previously, and one reason for this blog is to include images/descriptions of the "before" conditions. In most cases, the removed buildings were not loved and are not missed. The one recent exception is the La Bahia hotel project (Changes 35 and 51), where years of public opposition failed to prevent demolition of most of the historical apartment complex.

At the other end of the spectrum are projects like the 50-unit apartment complex shown above, which replaced existing 14-unit apartment buildings structures that were less than 50 years old. This proeject demonstrates an ending condition common to most recent residential development projects - increased density.

 

Santa Cruz Changes 87: Pacific Avenue updates

Back in 2021, early in the post-pandemic recovery, a series of posts (23-28) took a walk down Pacific Avenue, noting recent changes. Quite a few of those changes have changed again, and it's time for an update on a few notables.

The most highly-visible change is pictured above. The old beer garden at 1335 Pacific, abandoned by Starbucks in ~2019, is now our downtown place for donuts (no reviews yet).

Across the avenue at 1308, the former Marini's confectionary that sat empty for several years is now Gobi Mongolian Barbeque. Again, no reviews yet, but it smells good from the sidewalk.

At 1220, Rosie McCann's Irish Pub reopened (surprisingly!) after a lengthy pandemic shutdown.

At the Soquel Ave. corner, New Leaf Market has announced plans to move this branch out to Gateway Plaza, into the much-larger building now occupied by Ross clothiers. Here's hoping that a similar food retailer will take over the nicely-restored historical Bank of Italy building.  

The Metro Center site is now fenced off, and demolition should commence soon in preparation for the Pacific Station North project (see post #22). Across the street, the former Andy's Auto Supply store is still empty.

One business that has come and gone since 2021 - sadly for the few of us who enjoyed hanging out there - deserves mention: the funky-groovy cafe/art gallery/performance space at the corner of Laurel (previously called Munch and never officially changed). It was the kind of place you might have found in Santa Cruz in the late 1960s, but never caught on in this millenium, and closed early this year.

Across Laurel, the venerable Bonesio's Liquors has closed, and the property has been advertised for sale.