Santa Cruz Changes - 19: Coming to Water Street?

 

As promised last week, we're moving up the hill on Water Street to the corner of Water and Branciforte, where a developer proposes a six-story multi-use building at 831 Water Street. We can follow the process on the City of Santa Cruz website, which posts documents filed relating to large project proposals. 

The two images at right are copied from the developer's "Concept Plan" package. The upper image is a photo of the corner as it looks now, while the lower image is a computer rendering of the finished project. 

It's not hard to envision a re-development that would improve on what's there now. The proposed structure, however, is a massive change that will be strenuously opposed by many of its residential neighbors. Several years of permit applications, presentations, and public meetings lie ahead, so we won't know for some time how this turns out. Updates here to follow...

Santa Cruz Changes locations can be found on this Google Map.

Santa Cruz Changes - 18: Up We Go

It's hard not to notice that all of the newest apartment buildings constructed recently are taller than the two-story structures that had been typical since the 1960s. The downtown core of Santa Cruz is filling with six-and-seven story buildings, with heights similar to downtown Paris - just about the only large city downtown still lacking monster skyscrapers.  Indeed, a couple of the newer tall Pacific Avenue buildings even have mansard-roofed "garret" top floors.

Away from the downtown core, a good place to watch buildings grow is the south side of Water Street, between Branciforte Creek and the base of the hill going up to Branciforte Ave. Until the 2010s, this stretch of Water Street was occupied only by small one-story structures, as can be seen in the 2017 photo at right. The upward trend began with The Breakers, a three-story apartment development (located to the right of this photo). 

Then, in 2019, three combined lots provided a wide frontage for the Water Street Apartments, a four story block. For reference, the same street-light fixture appears in both photos, taken from roughly the same location.

Up the street, at the corner of Water and Branciforte, a developer has now prepared a proposal for a six-story multi-use building. Watch this space for news on that project. 

Santa Cruz Changes locations can be found on this Google Map.

Santa Cruz Changes - 17: RIP Aptos Coffee Roasters

One more older coffee story deserves mention. In 2018, after 30 years in the Rancho del Mar shopping center, Aptos Coffee Roasters closed its doors forever. This photo was taken just as the remodel was beginning, with the Aptos Coffee decals still on the door glass. 

Since 2020, the remodeled space has been home to Wonderland Toys & Classroom Resources, which moved a couple of miles from its former location in Capitola.

The closing was a sad day for many coffee lovers in that area, but just one part of the major Aptos changes that have happened in the past five years or so. There will be more to say here on that subject later.

Thankfully, the downtown Santa Cruz retail location of Santa Cruz Coffee Roasters seems to have survived COVID. All the new apartments being built nearby should mean an increasing stream of customers for all of the downtown caffeine providers.

Locations in the Santa Cruz Changes blog can be found on this Google Map.

Santa Cruz Changes - 16: Last Coffee Standing

While we're on Ocean Street and talking about coffee house closures, might as well mention the one Ocean Street survivor. With the closure of Fins and Coffeeville, the last coffee place on Ocean Street is Starbucks, which just opened in 2018. While not a landmark building, it's not ugly, and is certainly an improvement over the empty fenced-in lot that had been there for many years. 

Before Starbucks, the prominent corner was home to a Shell gas station from 1960, one of the first projects completed in the San Lorenzo Park Project redevelopment that commenced after the big December 1955 flood. More about that HERE.

The old Shell station was demolished in the early 2000s, and the Chipotle's restaurant chain eyed the site in 2008, but backed out when it was discovered that the gasoline storage tanks had been leaking, requiring more soil removal than expected before new construction could begin. Meanwhile, Shell found a new site right across Water Street, and built a new station on that corner.

Locations in the Santa Cruz Changes blog can be found on this Google Map.