Lower Ocean Street has several 1950s-style "motor court" apartment developments, an auto-centric update to the bungalow court of the 1920s that replaced the latter's landscaped central lawn area with a paved parking lot. The 2017 photo above shows several of those long one-story buildings, extending back from the street at 344-356 Ocean Street. Already empty and boarded up, they awaited the wrecking ball while street work progressed in front.
Land in Santa Cruz is too valuable now to have so few residential units on it, so those motor courts have been replaced with a huge single apartment building, expected to open later this year (2021). All of the new apartments are "affordable", with max. income limits. The photo below shows progress as of mid-May.
