Santa Cruz Changes - 20: Bail Bonds

 

State laws sometimes create visible changes in the local built environment. One example already noted in this blog is marijuana legalization, which has spawned a number of new retail businesses in Santa Cruz. 

A somewhat less noticeable change has come about because of changes to state laws reducing the number of cases where cash bail can be used in the criminal justice system. The law's effects seem to have caused three of four local bail bond businesses to close.

The state law was enacted in 2018, but legal challenges put it on hold until this year, when finally confirmed by the state Supreme Court on March 26. The anticipated outcome, however, had already begun to cause a reduction in the number of bail bonds offices in the area around the County Court House (Water and Ocean streets).

On Ocean Street, one of the two bail bond businesses (Diaz Bros.) has closed, and both of the bail bond offices on on Water Street have now taken down their signs. Santa Cruz Bail Bonds (pictured above) opted to consolidate with a legal documents preparation business next door and share space there, giving up its separate space. These businesses were just a small part of the local business scene, but their disappearance marks big changes in the workings of our local criminal justice system.

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

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.

Santa Cruz Changes - 15: Coffee to Cannabis

 

2020 was the year of COVID virus changes everywhere, but 2019 was the year of legal cannabis changes in California. On Ocean Street, two retail spaces switched from coffee to cannabis.

Near the north end, Fins Coffee became Reefside.

Farther south, Mei Garden Chinese Restaurant and Coffeeville became KindPeoples. 

In 2020, both businesses added delivery service in response to COVID precautions. In 2021, both dispensaries seem to be doing good business, and still delivering.

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

Santa Cruz Changes - 14: 1300-1400 Ocean Street

 

The block of Ocean Street north of Glenwood Ave. has undergone a long, slow evolution to its current incarnation as home to Habit Burger and T-Mobile. I knew it best as home to The Starving Musician, a decent place to buy new and used musical instruments and gear.

To the right of TSM, on the corner of Glenwood, someone in the 1980s had the strange impulse to build a very nice single-family residence. After a few years, the house was sold and became a very nice restaurant. Another odd choice for Ocean Street, a block from McDonald's and Denny's. The restaurant lasted maybe ten years, then sat empty for at least ten more years, until a developer bought both it and the music store lot, combining them in 2016 for a new retail development. 

First tenants in 2017 were Habit Burger and Dunkin' Donuts, with Habit occupying the former music store lot. Then came 2020 and the pandemic restaurant closures. Habit has toughed it out so far, but Dunkin' closed for good. 

COVID also closed The Starving Musician, which had moved to the Union Grove Music shop on Pacific Ave. Still closed in May, 2021, it remains to be seen whether it will reopen. Stay tuned for news... 

Dunkin' Donuts may be gone, but longtime local donut shop Ferrell's remains across the street. Another victory for the locals over a big chain. Dunkin' never learned how to make apple fritters as good as the ones at Ferrell's.

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

Santa Cruz Changes - 13: 350 Ocean Street

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.

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

Santa Cruz Changes - 12: Capitola Library

A new branch public library will be ready to open its doors this year on Wharf Road in Capitola. The image at right is the designer's rendering of the front entrance.

For Capitola library users, it's been a long time coming - the "temporary" library building at the site had been in use for twenty years.

The new library was scheduled to open in 2020, but a costly design error caused an eight-month delay in the project.

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

Santa Cruz Changes - 11: Aldo's restaurant

Another Santa Cruz dining institution has been going through some changes for several years, and Aldo's has finally given up on returning to its old location on the Santa Cruz Harbor sea wall, next to the channel. 

The photo above is from 2014 when, as usual, all the tables were full and more customers waited in line. Aldo's caught the attention of Guy Fieri, who visited and reviewed the local favorite for his show: Guy Fieri's "Diners Drive-Ins and Dives".

The restaurant had to close in 2016 because the seawall it was sitting on was nearing collapse. The building was demolished and the seawall repaired, but the restaurant building has not yet been replaced. Then came 2020 and COVID-19, heaping more hardship on the restaurant business.

When the restaurant closed, the harbor found a space on the lawn not far away, where Aldo's was able to relocate to what was supposed to be a temporary location. 

It's still there, and is likely to remain for quite a while, as the owners have found that they can't afford to rebuild in the old spot. 

We'll miss slurping cioppino while sitting right on the main harbor channel, but Aldo's in a different spot is much better than no Aldo's at all. As changes go, this one's not so bad.

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