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.  

Santa Cruz Changes 86: Walnut Avenue Commons

 

The condo-coop development seen above was completed in 2016, so noting it now is somewhat belated, but it was a significant change to the corner of Walnut Avenue and Center Street. The architecture is inoffensive, and certainly an improvement on the asphalt parking lot it replaced. The image below is from 2011.

Santa Cruz Changes 85: 1130 Mission Street

The northwest corner of Mission Street and Laurel Street has long been home to two modest 1-story buildings housing the Food Bin natural foods store and The Herb Room. An open parking lot separates the two. 

A proposal now before the city planning department would fill the lot with a 5-story multi-use building. Ground floor commercial space fronts on Mission Street, with covered parking behind, accessed from Laurel Street. 59 residential rental units stack above, on three sides of a central courtyard.

From the project website:

"On April 18th, 2023, a virtual community meeting was held by the applicant too present the proposed pre-application project (Project No. CP23-0003) and gather public feedback. For those who could not attend, below you will find the link to the recorded community meeting.

April18th, 2023, Community Meeting Recording"

The website also shows the project application scheduled for a Planning Commission meeting on Feb. 18, 2024, but the item did not appear on the agenda either for that meeting or for the Mar. 7 meeting, so current status is unclear.

Santa Cruz Changes 84: Capitola Avenue overpass

From Lookout Santa Cruz reporter Max Chun:

"Starting at 9 a.m. Monday [March 11], crews will begin the process of tearing down and rebuilding the Highway 1 overcrossing at Capitola Avenue, work that will keep the bridge between Soquel and Capitola shut down for more than a year. 

The construction is part of the ongoing Highway 1 expansion project, which includes adding new lanes that give motorists more space to merge at exit and entrance ramps and also serve as dedicated bus-on-shoulder lanes in some places, allowing buses to bypass traffic. The expansion project also includes adding new bicycle and pedestrian overcrossings. 

One such overcrossing at Chanticleer Avenue is already well on its way to completion [see Changes post #82]. But the Capitola Avenue overpass remake is just getting started. Crews plan to demolish the bridge and construct one that adds bike lanes and wider sidewalks. The overpass isn’t set to reopen until the summer or fall of 2025."

Santa Cruz Changes 83: Pure Water Soquel

Unlike the Santa Cruz Water agency, which gets much of our water from surface sources, Soquel Creek Water District depends entirely on 15 wells scattered throughout its service are from Live Oak to La Selva Beach. In recent years, demand has exceeded supply, resulting in an intrusion of salt water from Monterey Bay into underground aquifers. To offset part of that overdraft, Pure Water Soquel was created -  a huge project that, in a partnership with the Santa Cruz Wastewater Treatment plant, will inject treated waste water back into the aquifers via reverse wells.

Two new components of that system are now under construction. In Santa Cruz, big new pipelines are now hanging below each side of the Laurel Street bridge over the San Lorenzo River (see top photo). They terminate at the Santa Cruz Wastewater Treatment Facility next to Neary Lagoon. When completed, architectural panels attempting to imitate the stair-step design of the bridge piers will cover the pipes.

The other end of the long pipelines is the Water Purification Center, across Chanticleer Avenue from the bay-side end of the new pedestrian bridge over Highway 1 (also under construction - see post 82). Below is a recent photo of that work-in-progress. From there, purified water will enter more pipes, leading to three injection wells around Capitola.

Completion of pipeline construction is estimated for mid-May. I didn't find a completion estimate for the Purification Center, but my guess is sometime next year.

Note: the vote on Santa Cruz Measure M will be Tuesday, March 5. For a reminder of what brought Measure M about, see Changes 67, with an update on recent events.

Santa Cruz Changes 82: a bridge to nowhere?

 

Those of you who travel on Highway 1 between Santa Cruz and Capitola have seen the new pedestrian bridge under construction at Chanticleer Avenue (shown above). 

The original intent seems to have been to provide a walk/bike connection between the health care hub north of the freeway (around Dominican and Sutter hospitals) and developing health care-related facilities on the south side. The bridge approach on the south side begins in front of the County Sheriff facility, which opened in 2014. 

That development was to have been led by health-care giant Kaiser Permanente, which showed plans for a large new facility on Soquel Avenue (Hwy. 1 frontage road) near the corner of Chanticleer. The County planned to chip in with pedestrian/bike safety improvements to the northern segment of Chanticleer Avenue, a chaotic stretch where there are now no sidewalks or bike lanes.

But Kaiser abruptly changed its plans in May 2023, deciding to abandon the development plan. And now it appears that the County has put northern Chanticleer Ave. improvements on indefinite hold. Without those improvements, how many people are going to be brave enough to walk/ride on the street (Google Street View below)? We'll keep an eye on this one.  

Santa Cruz Changes 81: Zoning changes things

In the news recently: state efforts to encourage (or force) more housing density in single-family neighborhoods. A big obstacle to increased density is local zoning that limits how many housing units can be built on a parcel of a given size. Asking a city/county for permission to exceed the zoned density will almost always be answered with a big NO. 

When those cities/counties themselves decide that more density is desirable for  a certain neighborhood/area, they do it in a more planned manner - by changing the zoning to a designation that allows greater density. 

A couple of recent multi-family projects on a short section of May Avenue were probably facilitated by such a zoning change - from R-1 (one unit) to R-L (multiple units). The project at 448 May (above), now completed, replaced one residence with four attached townhomes, which is about the maximum number that can be fit onto a ~5,000 sq. ft. lot like this one.

A similar project (below) nearby is now working its way through the planning process, for a double-wide lot of ~10,000 sq. ft.  The double width allows a project that basically doubles the one at 448 May. Because the two buildings share one driveway, however, there's more than twice the area available for building footprints. Also, the units are smaller than those at 448 May, giving a total unit count of 16.

Note: across May Avenue from these two small projects is the site of the largest Santa Cruz multi-family project proposal in recent memory. That 400+ unit development application is still on hold after a couple of rounds of planning review, and will be described here when its fate becomes clearer.

Santa Cruz Changes 80: Lighthouse Field Improvements

 

Anyone who walks in Lighthouse Field during the rainy season knows that there are places where the path is likely to be underwater after recent rains. In January of 2024, State Parks has nearly completed weatherizing and accessibility upgrades to the main pathways. The map above, which can currently be found posted at the Pelton/Laguna path entrance, shows the extents of the program.

Low lying sections of paths have been given gravel surfaces and raised above the vernal pools that typically form once the ground becomes saturated with rainwater. The photo below, looking south toward West Cliff Drive (the lighthouse is out-of-frame to the left) shows one such raised path section, with a vernal pool beyond. In past years, this would have been one of those muddy spots. 

In addition to the pathway improvements, path entrances from Pelton Street and from West Cliff Drive have been given concrete curb-cut-style entrances to improve accessibility. One curious omission - which one hopes will soon be corrected - is where the new path paving should connect with the paved area in front of the Steamer Lane Supply food concession. There's a gap of about 20 feet between the two, which is currently a large mud puddle. 

Santa Cruz Changes 79: San Lorenzo Park redesign

Back in 2020, the Santa Cruz City Council approved a future-planning document called the "Parks Master Plan 2030". Part of that master plan is a redesign of San Lorenzo Park. Developing an actual redesign proposal began in earnest in 2023, and continues into 2024. 

On Monday, January 8, the Parks and Recreation Commission meeting will be devoted to finalizing Commission recommendations to the City Council. The site plan shown above is the redesign version recommended to the Commission by staff. A complete agenda packet can be found here. 

The Parks and Rec decision will not be the final word, just a recommendation to the City Council, although staff recommendations are not often rejected. In this case, there is another redesign-plan option that will also remain available for consideration. That other option has more riparian restoration and less community-park-type amenities.

No doubt there will be more to say about this as 2024 proceeds.

Santa Cruz Changes 78 - 2024: It's gonna be wild!

 As noted in the last post, multiple downtown-area projects area will be completed in 2024. At least one other major project previously noted here - known as Pacific Station North - is scheduled to begin construction next year. Because part of that project is a rebuild of the Metro Center, Metro bus loading/unloading will be moved to a temporary on-street site for the 2 years until the new facility is ready. 

Thanks to Lookout Santa Cruz for publishing the map below, showing how that will work. The 3 bus stops A, B, and C surround the CVS drugstore south parking lot on River Street, Soquel Avenue, and Front Street. Those are very busy streets, so we could be in for 2 (more) years of very slow downtown traffic. I plan to avoid driving in that area as much as possible.