Santa Cruz Changes 128 - A Warriors concept

 

As the City of Santa Cruz solidifies its south-of-Laurel rezoning plans, the Santa Cruz Warriors offered a draft-concept image of a new permanent arena. It answers a couple of questions and brings up others. 

In the image above, the new arena is seen from what's now the corner of Spruce Street, across Front Street. It's worth noting that:

• The pedestrian plaza in front of the arena is where Laurel Street Extension runs now. City plans call for rerouting that street to the opposite side of the arena, eliminating the big S-curve around the arena. That would eliminate some city-owned supportive-housing apartments - no word yet on where that housing might be relocated.
• There appears to be landscaping on the roof - does that indicate a public space up there? That would be cool, with nice views of the river.
• The building shown at far left in this rendering is not described in the Warriors concept, or in any proposal we've seen to date. Maybe a parking structure? Current occupant of that triangle-shaped Front Street parcel is Wheel Works. 
• The foreground crosswalk would connect to another pedestrian plaza that would take the place of today's Spruce Street, adjacent to the Ace Hardware parking lot. That plaza concept is illustrated in a rendering submitted for a proposed development (see Changes 126) that would fill the Ace Hardware block (foreground in the image below).

Santa Cruz Changes 127: The Once and Future Farmers Market

 

May 14 UPDATE: Move delayed until June 4

After 25 years, this coming Wednesday will be the last time the downtown Santa Cruz Farmers Market sets up in the Cedar Street parking lots between Walnut and Lincoln, seen at right (Photo: Dan Coyro, Santa Cruz Sentinel). 

The City is ready to move forward with preparing the site for the long-planned library/garage/housing project (first described here in 2023: Changes 58) that will cover those lots, so the Farmers Market moves to a temporary location next to and around the current library, as shown below.

Meanwhile, planning proceeds on a reuse plan for the current library location. At a March 25 presentation, the city asked for community input on 3 options. The motion described below was passed:

"Motion To: 

1) Adopt a resolution appropriating $250,000 from the Economic Development Trust Fund to fund site furnishings to activate Lot 16 for the Farmers’ Market and $150,000 from the Infill and Infrastructure Grant approved budget to fund needed site infrastructure; and 

2) Select Option 2 for re-use of the existing library site with a preference for affordable housing for city employee, seniors, and/or other sub populations identified in need of housing, to the extent legally feasible; and 

3) Direct staff to seek developers that will contribute to the development of the public market space."

No timeline has been established for these actions, so the Farmers Market may remain in its "temporary" location for quite some time. Eventually, the results of Option 2, as described in the presentation, will aspire to look something like the image below (City Hall is at far left).