Changes 156 counted the number of new apartment units recently opened or under construction in downtown Santa Cruz. That post noted an unanswered question: How can we estimate the number of residents per new apartment? I haven't worked that one out yet, but instead came up against another question: how fast are those new housing units filling up?
The City recently tried to answer that question with the informational document copied at right. It shows very high occupancy at all three of the newly-opened multi-family housing projects, even at market-rate Anton Pacific, the oldest and largest of the three. The Anton occupancy figures no doubt came from the developer and could be inflated, but the other two are city-sponsored projects, so the figures are presumably reliable. They seem to indicate plenty of appetite for this type of downtown housing.
We'll learn more as River Row and Pacific Station North fill up, but I expect the numbers to be similar. I talked to the folks at Mercy Housing who are running the PacStation North application process, and was told that there were over 1,500 applications for the 228 apartments. Not too far behind is another large project: the mixed-use library/housing/garage. I've also noticed a recent slight decline in asking rents for existing apartments, which may be attributable in part to all the new units coming onto the market.
