Santa Cruz Changes - 10: Saturn Cafe won't reopen

 

2020-21 has been a rough time for restaurants, and a downtown Santa Cruz institution has decided not to reopen - Saturn Cafe. The owners say they are looking to reopen in another location, so we'll watch for that. Here's the Good Times story:

Santa Cruz Changes - 9: 418-508 Front Street

Above: developer's rendering of the pedestrian plaza that will run through from Front Street to the levee.

This is the most-recently-approved major mixed-use development in downtown Santa Cruz. As of April, 2021, construction has not begun. Stretching along the river (east) side of Front Street opposite the end of Cathcart Street and the Metro Center, it will replace three older commercial buildings and three parking lots. Below is a 2017 view of the plaza area from Cathcart Street:

Below is the developer's plan view on the plaza level (shown w 4 parallel blue/magenta dotted lines). Above that level, the structure splits into 3 towers.

 

Santa Cruz Changes - 8: Seabreeze Tavern

The west end of the Rio del Mar Esplanade is about to change, as the old Sea Breeze Tavern building seems destined for demolition:

"The County Historic Resources Commission will meet Monday, April 5 at 9:30 am by remote teleconference. Click HERE for the agenda and instructions for public participation. Agenda items include:

• Status update on the Seabreeze Tavern, a designated historic resource located at 101 Esplanade in Aptos, including County determination that the building poses an immediate threat to public health and safety, and County action approving the demolition of the structure in order to protect the public from danger."

The building's fate was sealed when a fire gutted the upstairs apartment in 2020. While never contributing much to the street's appeal, the Sea Breeze is the only building on the Esplanade old enough to be historical.  See some history below, as collected by Bratton Online.

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

Santa Cruz Changes - 7: Delaware Addition

This is a multi-phase commercial-residential development on the far Westside, built on empty land between Delaware Avenue and the rail trail. It includes two new cross-connected dead-end streets, High Road and Panetta Lane. The first two commercial buildings opened in 2016. At right is 100 Panetta Lane.

The residential part of the development began construction in 2018. Devcon Construction is the general contractor.

August, 2024 update: What in 2021 looked like the beginning of construction on a larger residential development proposed for the west side of Panetta Lane was apparently just a staging area for the other buildings. That large, still-fenced lot now shows no activity, and city records show no active permit application.

Santa Cruz Changes - 6: 1547 Pacific Ave.

For almost thirty years after the 1989 earthquake, there was a giant hole in the ground near the north end of Pacific Avenue - the longest such emptiness ever. For those who were around before the earthquake, the diverse collection of buildings and open space occupying the site was a popular destination: home to Bookshop Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz Coffee Roasters, and the quirky United Cigar store - all facing Pacific, with a walkway to the open dining deck behind, and the original Kelly's French Bakery in one of two newer one-story octagon-shaped buildings behind that, flanking the rear entrance walkway from the Cedar Street parking lot. 

But downtown development doesn't work that way anymore. A five-story-above-parking mixed-use block now fills every square inch of the site. It's not offensive, but neither does it offer any reason for Pacific Avenue strollers to stop. The center of downtown social life has mostly moved south, except for the war vets' weekend sing-alongs across Pacific at the War Memorial plaza.

The one neighboring survivor from pre-earthquake days is Lulu Carpenter's coffee cafe, now the oldest building on Pacific Avenue. The view at right is from 2017 (sidewalk tables close together and no masks!), when construction next door was just getting started.

At left is a similar view in March 2021. The new apartment building is called Nanda on Pacific. No commercial tenants yet. For better or worse, the hole is gone - completely!

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

Santa Cruz Changes - 5: Chinatown arch

 

The pedestrian bridge crossing the San Lorenzo River at San Lorenzo Park was built in 1963 as part of the San Lorenzo Park Project redevelopment - as was everything near either end of the bridge. One of the things that went away during redevelopment near the west (downtown) end of the bridge was the last Santa Cruz Chinatown.

A group of local history activists worked to ensure that the vanished Chinatown was not forgotten. The first step was to persuade the City Council to rename the footbridge "Chinatown Bridge" in 2019. Then, in 2020, a commemorative arch was designed, constructed, and installed at the west end of the bridge - overlooking the former Chinatown location.

The Coastal Watershed Council supported the project, and director Greg Pepping wrote this article about it, which included the photo at right. Supporter George Ow, Jr., who grew up in the Santa Cruz Chinatown, is seen standing under the new arch.

Good Times magazine ran this article about the project.  

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

Santa Cruz Changes - 4: Pacific-Laurel-Front

Demolition on this major redevelopment project has just begun in March, 2021. The project site is bounded by Pacific Avenue, Laurel Street, and Front Street. The City website page is here. The image below is an architect's rendering.

The old Taco Bell drive-thru on this corner has been closed for several years; here's what it looked like in 2017 (courtesy of Google Streetview).

Two more tall mixed-use projects will soon follow, adjacent to the north between this one and the Metro Center, straddling Maple Alley, which will be widened into a pedestrian way. More on those projects later...

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

Santa Cruz Changes - 3: Regal Cinemas

Retail business models have seen accelerating rates of change since WWII. Beginning in the 1960s, downtown business districts were stripped of their "anchor" department stores by "mall" developments. Here in Santa Cruz, that movement got an assist from the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, which fatally damaged the buildings that were home to the Ford's and Gottschalk's (previously Leask's) department stores. The demolished Gottschalk's store was replaced by a nine-screen movie theater. Now, the rise of online video streaming threatens the continued viability of movie theaters. And, just as the earthquake hurried the demise of the department stores, the 2020-21 COVID-19 restrictions on indoor gatherings have been the final nail in the coffin for some theaters. Recent rumors are that Regal Cinemas will not reopen its flagship Santa Cruz operation (seen above in 2017). 

This follows closure of the Riverfront Twin a few years ago (seen below in 2017). From fourteen downtown movie screens, Santa Cruz is now down to three.

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

Update: Regal sold the Cinema 9, and it reopened on March 25, 2021, as Santa Cruz Cinema.

   

Santa Cruz Changes - 2: 265 Water Street

After going back a few years for the first post in this series, I realized that the chronological order should be reversed. So many changes are happening this year that it makes more sense to start with current events. Otherwise, the posts may never catch up to the calendar! Just a few days ago, a nighttime fire damaged much of a house at 265 Water Street. Like its neighbor at #271, the wood-frame building dated from approx. the 1870s. At that time, the future Water Street was a dirt track approaching the first Water Street bridge, built in 1868. A more flood-resistant design replaced it in 1882. Following the big flood of December 22-23, 1955, Santa Cruz County acquired the large parcel of land where today's courthouse and government center buildings stand. The land across Water Street may have been part of that, or acquired at the same time, or acquired later. In 1981, the current jail was built, on land that included the two old houses at 265 and 271 Water Street. Since then, the two buildings have housed various county programs, but both have been boarded up for some time. The first picture at right shows #265 when it was still in use.

The second photo is from the morning of the 16th, after the fire. The north side of Water Street and sidewalk were closed, so the fire damage is seen through the trees to the west (left in the top photo). It's a good thing I took the pic that morning. By today (Friday the 18th), the building was demolished, as shown in the third photo.

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

Santa Cruz Changes - 1: 555 Pacific Avenue

Now that most of the local history content has migrated over to the Santa Cruz County History wiki,  this blog can be home to another sort of local history project. In 2016, I began to notice that the pace of new development in Santa Cruz was picking up as we climbed out of the 2008 recession. Realizing how easy it is to forget what came before when something completely new replaces it, I decided to start documenting those changes with before-during-after photos.

One of the first changes to attract my attention happened at 555 Pacific Avenue, on a parcel that had held only a pile of broken concrete rubble for at least fifteen years. The long, narrow strip facing Pacific Avenue was what remained of the former Prolo Chevrolet dealership property after the larger rear portion was split off and developed as the Sycamore Street Commons apartments in the late 1990s. I'm still looking for a photo of the Prolo Chevy establishment, and will add it here when found, but in my memory it's always been a vacant lot. That may demonstrate how easy it is to forget what used to be, plus the fact that I didn't often get to this part of town before starting to hang out at the Firefly Coffee House (shout out!) in 2011. The Google satellite view at left from March 2016 shows the dogleg-shaped empty lot, with the green-roofed apartment buildings to the left. 

The first development proposal for this property was presented to the city in 1999, but failed to advance. Various other ideas came and went, until the current Barry Swenson (who else?) project finally broke ground in 2016. The photo at right was taken in November, 2016, from a position just off the bottom of the photo above.

The 2020 photo at left shows the completed 94-unit project from about the same position.

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