Santa Cruz Changes: 35 - Beach Street

 

The Santa Cruz beachfront area is rapidly changing, also. Best known of the recent changes - one that is still underway -  is the absorption of the courtyard-style La Bahia apartments into a huge hotel that will fill the entire block. At right is an early postcard view, when La Bahia was known as Casa del Rey Apartments, built by the Seaside Company in 1926.

Only part of the front building and its tower will be preserved and integrated into the new hotel. None of the new construction has yet begun, although demolition of most of the old buildings was completed in 2019. 

Since then, the entire block has remained fenced off, and pedestrians see the view at left from the Beach Street sidewalk.

There are other changes to either side of the La Bahia block - one not so recent, and one still under construction. To the left, across Main Street, the Casablanca Inn added a new wing of rooms climbing the hill about six years ago. 

The view at right looks up Main Street, where the newer building can be seen to the right of the original 1916 residence built after a spectacular fire destroyed the Sea Beach Hotel in 1912. Some of the stone retaining walls may be remnants of the extensive terraced gardens that adjoined the hotel.

On the other side of La Bahia, across Westbrook Street, the non-descript Coastview Inn (left) was torn down and is being replaced by a larger version of itself (right, below). Still under construction, it's too early to know what the new hotel will look like, except that it will increase from two stories to three. 

Part of the new Coastview Inn construction can be seen in the left-background of the La Bahia photo above.

The increasingly-common trend among hotel and multi-family developments is to replace buildings and their adjacent open parking lots with lot-filling larger buildings and underground parking. The very first Santa Cruz Change noted in this blog, at 555 Pacific Avenue, is an exemplar of the changing development thinking. 

It's hard to feel bad about the loss of acres of open asphalt and/or littered vacant lots, but the new sky-blocking buildings are perhaps a Faustian sort of "improvement". In a more perfect world...

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

Santa Cruz Changes: 34 - Cedar Street

After a week off, a look at the northern end of Cedar Street. Some of the changes there are older than others, but the general trend seems to be toward extending the Pacific Avenue food/drink/shop zone to include the parallel street a block to the west. 

In the past two years or so, we've lost a bookstore in this area, and gained another. Longtime bookseller The Literary Guillotine closed its doors on Locust Street. Just around the corner on Cedar is the new bookshop/cafe BAD ANIMAL, where the sandwich sign out front says "stop by, have a drink, eat some food, build your library".

If not eating/drinking while book shopping, there's eating/drinking while flower shopping. A block to the south and across Cedar from BAD ANIMAL, next door to  Gabriella's restaurant, flower bar will serve you rosé with your roses.

Across from flower bar, the Penny Ice Creamery is still creating those amazing flavors by hand, in small batches.

Jumping several blocks to the south, one more Cedar Street loss should be noted. Longtime Irish pub and open-mic venue The Poet and the Patriot closed its doors this year after decades next to the even-more-legendary Kuumbwa Jazz Center.

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

Santa Cruz Changes: 33 - Riverwalk

 

One of my favorite places in Santa Cruz is Riverwalk Park. The levee-top walkways are elevated enough to give expansive views, both of the San Lorenzo River that flows toward Monterey Bay between the parallel levees, and of neighborhoods bordering the river. Toward the river there's great bird-watching. The San Lorenzo host is to many local species.

The last link in a continuous Riverwalk loop was the 2019 replacement of the narrow wood-plank footbridge built alongside the old iron railroad trestle that spans the river near its mouth. The 10' width of the new walkway (see at right) means that pedestrians/bicyclists going opposite directions can pass each other without one turning sideways.

The final obstacle to completing a continuous Riverwalk loop was removed in 2017, when an iron pedestrian bridge was installed over Branciforte Creek at the south end of San Lorenzo Park, along with a new trail section that drops under the Soquel Avenue vehicle bridge. Riverwalk-ers no longer have to detour out to Dakota/Riverside Street to cross the creek and street. 

Before the Branciforte Creek foot bridge, an even bigger obstacle to a Riverwalk loop was removed when a similar but longer iron footbridge (made by the same company, see at left) was installed in 2010, crossing the San Lorenzo just downstream from the Highway 1 bridge. At the same time a new walkway segment was completed,  passing under Highway 1 to connect the west-bank Riverwalk to the Tannery Arts Center.  

City of Santa Cruz planning  for the Riverwalk began way back in 1987. It took a long time, as public projects tend to do, but now it's complete.

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

Santa Cruz Changes: 32 - Sea Walls

 

Several recent "Changes" posts have featured some of the colorful wall murals created by local artists. The paint is barely dry on a new set of murals, part of a project called "Sea Walls: Artists For Oceans". The project is described as "A public art initiative to give our oceans a creative voice."

The project has a website: https://seawalls.org/activation/santa-cruz-usa/, where a map can be downloaded showing the 19 mural locations scattered around the city, along with information about the artists. 

The two shown here are on walls facing Frazier Lewis Lane (behind the Front-Soquel parking structure.) 

While admiring the four murals at this location, have lunch at the El Palomar outdoor dining "parklet". Its location away from street traffic makes it one of the better pandemic dining experiences.

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

2023-07-21 update: there's now a website listing and showing all of the Santa Cruz murals. Its self-explanatory name is Santa Cruz Murals.com.

Santa Cruz Changes: 31 - lower Pacific Avenue

The significant changes to the lowest-numbered stretch of Pacific Avenue are older than others mentioned so far in the "Changes", but significant. One of those changed the street itself - the two traffic circles. Long popular in Europe, and known in British parlance as "roundabouts", traffic circles have been slow to catch on in the U.S. 

The plan for two traffic circles on Pacific Avenue was approved in 2006, and the first one was installed in 2010, where Pacific meets Center Street in front of Depot Park (before Depot Park, Washington Street also ended at the same junction). Also at that location, W. Cliff Drive begins as a one-way street, climbing the hill parallel to Pacific. The well-intentioned-but-impossible-to-read-while-driving sign shown in the photo attempts to be helpful.

After an appropriate cooling-off period for drivers to get over their freak-out, The second circle was installed in 2014-15, at the end of Pacific Avenue, in front of the Municipal Wharf entrance. Both circles are busy, and both seem to be working well. 

Even the inclusion of a complicated dedicated bike path works - but watch out for tourists turning from the circle onto the Wharf! 

Another notable older change is the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary Exploration Center, at 35 Pacific, just across the railroad tracks from the circle. 

Establishment of the Sanctuary was a major victory for local advocacy groups like Save Our Shores, and the breaking-wave-shaped Exploration Center benefits from its prominent location next to the rail-trail corridor (more on rail-trail soon!).  

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

Santa Cruz Changes - 30: 700-500 Pacific Avenue

Crossing Laurel Street, Pacific Avenue gets into the downtown planning area long labeled "south of Laurel". 

The most significant recent change in the 700 block, the closure of Saturn Cafe, has already been noted in "Changes" #10. But the round Saturn Cafe room was just the showroom end of building constructed in 1947 for a car dealership. 

Local boom-and-bust company Kinko's occupied the larger part of the building from 1985 to 1999. More recently, Walgreen's drug store gave that space a try, but closed last year. Now an Ace Hardware franchise has taken over the entire building in 2021 - including the round corner showroom. It's a rare business opening since 2019, so good luck to them.

The streetscape past Ace Hardware is best described as "eclectic". No recent major changes, although a building is under construction on what has long been a vacant lot at the northwest corner of Pacific and Sycamore - don't know yet what it will be.

Across Sycamore is the big residential development at 555 Pacific, the subject of the very first Santa Cruz Changes post back in March. News since then is that Current eBikes has moved into one of the retail spaces.  

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

Santa Cruz Changes - 29: 900-800 Pacific Avenue

In the 900 and 800 blocks of Pacific Avenue, we get into some familiar territory, at least on the east side of the street. The three big redevelopment projects on that side will rebuild the entire 900-800 frontage. The two Pacific Station projects were described in posts #21 and #22. Neither of those projects have begun construction yet. Most of the 800 block has been razed in 2021, and the big new project there (see post #4) is slowly rising from the ground. So let's look now at the west side of those two short blocks.

As with the 1000 block, the first thing to notice as you travel south on Pacific Avenue past Elm Street is a large, colorful wall mural facing you on the right. Streetlight Records has filled some of the new & used LP/CD/DVD vacuum left when Logos closed, and seems to be doing well. All of the mid-block businesses beyond are also open. 

At the next corner is yet another fun wall mural, facing south toward Maple Street from the wall of long-time retailer Andy's Auto Supply. The store closed in 2019, unlikely to return, but I hope the mural stays. If the scene pictured in the mural is accurate, Andy's used to be located farther south, in the 800 block. 

The old location of Andy's has long been home to Zachary's, a locally-owned breakfast/lunch institution. Since re-opening for indoor dining, weekend waiting lines once again fill the PacAve sidewalk in front.

Past Zachary's is the last surviving Santa Cruz example of what was once common in commercial building nomenclature - the Jonas Block. From about 1870 to 1910, Pacific Avenue filled up with large-ish buildings dubbed "Block"  - usually following the owner's name. This one was built by David Jonas, a clothing retailer, in 1908. the building name, high up on the roof-edge parapet, is hard to see from the street because of the trees, but can be read easily on the Andy's mural.

The block ends at Laurel Street and a less-treasured local institution, the Bonesio Liquor Store. The front corner of the building is chamfered at 45 degrees, so that customers can drive in from either street, stop right in front of the door, leave the motor running while running in to make a purchase, and exit straight ahead onto the other street. What could go wrong? 

A bit of historical deja-vu: in 1963, Victor Bonesio announced his intention to sell his liquor store to a man from Tulare named Harold W. Jarvis. Probably no relation, but among the earliest wine-and-spirits wholesale/retailers in Santa Cruz was George M. Jarvis, who opened a store on the north end of Pacific Avenue in 1876.  

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

Santa Cruz Changes - 28: Pacific Avenue 1000 block

 

Crossing Cathcart Street and continuing toward the beach, the 1000 block is a short one, extending only to where Elm Street dead-ends from the right. Not much has changed recently -  the mid-2000s mixed-use building at 1010 is the only thing on the left. On the right, the Old School Shoes mural (above) still decorates the long blank wall facing Cathcart.

Next door to O.S.S. on both sides is an odd L-shaped 2-story building with narrow frontage on both Pacific and Cathcart. A building permit has been issued to remodel the structure into several condos, but construction has not begun.

Mid-block is filled by The Catalyst, long-time icon of the Santa Cruz live music scene. Long closed because of COVID protocols, the venue reopened in mid-August. The photo at right is from 2019, when the marquee still advertised upcoming shows.

Also reopened in mid-August is The Starving Musician, which had recently moved from Ocean Street (see Changes #14) into the old Union Grove Music store when COVID hit. The fate of a musician supply store located next door to a live-music club would seem to depend on whether that club is open, so let's hope there are no further public-health-related closures.

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

Santa Cruz Changes - 27: 1100 block Pacific Avenue

The 1100 bock of Pacific Avenue begins at the Soquel Ave. junction on the east, and at the Lincoln Street junction on the west. The block ends at Cathcart Street, in a return to east-west cross-street alignment. 

New Leaf Market remains at the Soquel corner, in the 1929 building originally home to the Bank of Italy, which grew into the Bank of America. The last vestige of the BofA presence departed a few years ago with the closing (2018?) of the sidewalk ATM. 

Next to the former ATM, long-time sustainable-material retailer EcoGoods closed, and that space remains empty. Out front, Cafe Campesino moved into the sidewalk kiosk.

A bit further on, plans to reopen the Del Mar theater remain on hold. The StreetView image at right shows what was playing in July, 2017. The theater's longtime sidekick, Cafe Delmarette, has reopened.

Beyond the Del Mar at 1122, Santa Cruz Jewelers & Gifts came and went since 2017, probably a victim of the COVID closures.

At the Lincoln Street corner, Bay Area franchise Nick the Greek replaced the Sitar Indian restaurant, in the 1937 building built by Morris Abrams for his clothing store.

Farther along is the site of a major loss for Santa Cruz readers and listeners. Logos Books and Records. Owner/builder John Livingston retired in 2019 from the location Logos has occupied since rebuilding after the 1989 earthquake.  

Announced plans to convert the Logos space into a brew pub have not materialized, and the street frontage remains empty.

This is a good time to mention one other change affecting all of Pacific Avenue from Locust Street to Lincoln street - the addition of informational signs pointing out along side streets to where various businesses can be found.  

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

Santa Cruz Changes - 26: 1200 block Pacific Avenue

The saddest recent change in the 1200s of Pacific Avenue (for us Irish, anyway) is also one of the least visible - because it was upstairs. Longtime resident Rosie McCann's Irish pub & restaurant did not survive the long COVID closure, perhaps in part because it was unable to set up an outdoor serving area. Coupled with the closing of The Poet and The Patriot, it's getting harder to find a pint of Guinness downtown. 

Across Pacific and to the north of Walnut Avenue, Joe's Pizza and Subs has left its shop next to Pacific Cookie Company, which continues to thrive (hooray!) The other Joe's location remains open, at the corner of Water Street and Branciforte Ave.

Two years ago, the 1200-block business that seemed most likely to disappear was Forever 21. The clothing chain survived bankruptcy, however, and its Santa Cruz store reopened. Following Borders Books, another large chain retailer failure at 1200 Pacific might have started rumors about ghosts or curses.

At the corner of Walnut, right across from Forever 21, local clothing retailer Berdel's also seems to be doing well. The store has grown to absorb the next-door space formerly occupied by Synergy Clothing.  

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