Santa Cruz Changes 50: 530 Center Street Mixed-Use

Many previously-reported changes are now under construction, but this one somehow came in under my radar. A new mixed-use development has broken ground at 530 Center Street. That site was a big, underutilized public parking lot, next door to the Calvary Episcopal complex. 

There are usually a lot of empty spaces, so this lot was probably the best downtown candidate for asphalt removal - good riddance.

As can be seen in the photos, the large parking lot fronts on both Center and Cedar Streets, and is right across Cedar Street from the lot where the Farmers Market happens every Wednesday, which is also where the City Council wants to build the controversial library/housing/parking structure. 

A non-binding referendum on that project has qualified for the November ballot, so we'll see how that turns out.

The under-construction photo above left is from last week's Sentinel, and to the right is a conceptual rendering from the developer's submittal to the city. The viewpoint is from the corner of Cedar and Cathcart, approximately the same spot as in the Google Street View image at top right. To the left of the new building can be seen the 25-foot-wide public "paseo" that will run through from Cedar to Center.

Like most of the recent mixed-use downtown projects, this one has retail/commercial spaces on the ground floor and apartments above. Unlike most of the others, however, this building has no internal parking for residents, and only 12 on-site parking spaces. 

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

Santa Cruz Changes: 49 - Rail Trail 2022

The Rail Trail project is progressing steadily, being now complete from Wilder Ranch to Bay Street in Santa Cruz. Also in place is the short segment along Beach Street, from Pacific Avenue to the recently-widened pedestrian bridge across the San Lorenzo River. In between is the segment from the corner of California and Bay to Pacific Avenue.

Construction on that segment is scheduled to begin later this year. Above right is a rendering of what the completed California Street end will look like. The roadway at left is the entrance driveway into the sewage treatment plant. To the right of the driveway, at center-left in the rendering, is the plant's sign.

That same sign is in the photo at left, taken today, looking in the same direction along the railroad tracks. The new trail will be to the right of the tracks. The other end of this segment will connect with the existing paved trail from Depot Park, following the tracks under the wooden West Cliff Drive bridge to Pacific Avenue, next to the Monterey Bay Marine Sanctuary museum.

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

Santa Cruz Changes: 48 - Mansard evolution

Regular readers will have noticed that the kinds of changes noted here usually involve the built environment. Such changes most often happen when an older building is torn down and replaced. However, architectural styles have also changed a lot over the years. Sometimes those changes come full circle, when a new building is designed - at least in general terms - in an older style.

The style known as "Second Empire" features what was a new design invention at the time (1850s), and was perhaps the first architectural workaround. The city of Paris enacted a height limit, coupled with a requirement for pitched roofs. In response, some clever designer invented the mansard roof. 

The style didn't reach Santa Cruz until the 1870s, and its popularity only lasted about ten years. At that time, Santa Cruz didn't have height limits or roof pitch requirements, so the French innovation lacked its main raison d'etre. Today, only two Second Empire designs survive within our city limits, and one has been extensively altered. The Hotel McCray on Front Street, shown in the photo at right, was originally a private home, remodeled in Second Empire style in the 1870s. 

Now the old hotel structure forms the central core of today's Sunshine Villa, an assisted living facility. Extensive additional wings flank the original building. Attempting to preserve design consistency, the additions restate the original mansard roof and corner tower style.  

A view from above Pacific Avenue, near the north end of West Cliff Drive, offers an opportunity to see this design evolution circle from a single vantage point, along with an example of what later gave the mansard a bad name in modern commercial design. 

At upper left (pink) is part of the Sunshine Villa additions, showing its many dormer windows in a mansard roof. 

Below right is Las Palmas Taco Bar, with its green mansard false roof, used to screen mechanical equipment on the roof. To be fair, a mansard is probably not the least attractive way to provide such screening. The style was so overused in the 1950s-70s, however, that it became emblematic of that era's "tackytecture". 

A disclaimer, by the way: the food at Las Palmas has always been great, no matter what you think of the building.

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

Santa Cruz Changes: 47 - London Nelson Center

Last summer, the City of Santa Cruz passed a resolution to correct a longstanding historical error: the misspelling of London Nelson's name. That meant changing some signage, most prominently at the community center renamed for Nelson in 1978. The image at right is from 2017 Streetview. 

I don't know exactly when it happened, but there's now a new sign at the corner of Laurel and Center Streets. The photo at left was taken a couple of weeks ago, on one of our many cloud-free January days. 

On Christmas Day, I found that the name change has reached the monument at the top of the old stone Mission Hill schoolyard steps on Mission Street (right). A new bronze plaque has been attached, covering the engraved top surface of the granite plinth. The only change to the information previously displayed is the corrected spelling of  "London".

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

Santa Cruz Changes: 46 - Wee Kirk

News came this week that the old "Wee Kirk" in Ben Lomond has a new owner who promises to continue the preservation and restoration efforts of the building's previous owner. The Streetview image at right shows the little church in January, 2014. 

The following is from an article in Good Times:

Where the Wee Kirk Church once welcomed parishioners to mend their souls, nonprofit Santa Cruz Community Health will now provide comprehensive primary care services. . .a new health clinic opened at the site of a Ben Lomond historic church on Jan. 24.

The building was previously the home of Dr. Steven Leib’s family medical practice. He and his wife Vivian restored the historic church in 2014, and it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2017.

Lisa Robinson, president of the board of the San Lorenzo Valley Historical Society, who was at the opening, told the Press Banner the Leibs did a really good job fixing it up. “They’ve always felt that this building belonged to the community,” she said. “I’m really pleased that they have found the right group to take over.”

She expects it will continue to be a powerful place of healing. “It has just such a special feeling when you come through the door,” she reflected, as people milled through the space for the first time. “You feel better just being in this space.”

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

Santa Cruz Changes: 45 - Aptos library

The venerable Aptos library (shown at right) will soon be replaced, so Changes is jumping out to Aptos this week. According to this Good Times article:

"Plans are moving forward with the Aptos Branch Library project to raze the existing 8,000-square-foot building, near the corner of State Park and Soquel drives, and build a 12,400-square-foot replacement. . .the wrecking ball isn’t expected to swing loose until next summer."

As can be seen in the concept rendering at left, the overall size and shape of the new building won't be too different - a low one-story structure (haven't used the term "one-story" much lately!) We'll check on progress at some future date.

Grab the current issue of Good Times for more details, or go online to Aptos Friends of SCPL.

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

Santa Cruz Changes: 44 - Live Oak Crossing

 

Returning to the Live Oak area to begin 2022, after a two-week holiday break, Changes looks at the corner of Brommer Street and 17th Avenue. An apartment development named "Live Oak Crossing", completed in 2019, now fills that corner where an empty lot sat behind chain-link fences for many years. 

The 2017 view from Brommer Street (above right), did not add to the charm of this central Live Oak intersection. 

The unusual up-sweeping roof design of the new apartment buildings (left) has had its share of detractors. Also, in a reversal of program from earlier decades, the apartments' large parking lot is hidden behind the street-fronting buildings. While it arguably creates a more attractive view for passing motorists, residents would probably prefer a parking lot located between their homes and the street, giving them some buffer from the traffic noise at this busy intersection.

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

Santa Cruz Changes: 43 - 1500 Capitola Road

This site, near the 17th Avenue intersection, has not been one to catch the attention of passing drivers. The one residence was mostly hidden by trees. 

The view at right, from summer of 2017, is pleasing to the eye for all the greenery, but this sidewalk sees few of the pedestrians who would be able to appreciate it. 

Today, however, there's a busy construction site. A recent Sentinel article described what's happening:

"Dientes Community Dental Care’s new 11-chair clinic. . .at 1500 Capitola Road. The project at the site is a collaborative initiative which also includes a 20,000-square-foot, two-story Santa Cruz Community Health facility that will provide medical, behavioral health, and specialty care with a focus on pediatrics, and 57 affordable residential units by MidPen Housing."

The view at left shows the current state of affairs, from that same sidewalk. This project, and the proposed Kaiser Health project profiled in last week's Changes, show that the health care industry is experiencing a growth spurt in Santa Cruz County.

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

Santa Cruz Changes: 42 - Kaiser Medical Offices

Moving out of the City of Santa Cruz into the Live Oak area, Kaiser Permanente has applied to Santa Cruz County for permits to build a medical office building at 5940 Soquel Avenue. 

This stretch of Soquel Avenue, between 17th and 41st Avenues, is a frontage road on the south side of the Highway 1 freeway. Looking at the photo (above right) of the current uses there, it's hard to imagine a transformation to what's shown in the design rendering (below right).  

Looking at a somewhat similar existing development two parcels to the west (left) is the nearest comparable site. The Kaiser building, however, like most current development proposals, is twice as tall. 

The project is still in the planning approval process. Here's an excerpt from the planning staff description: "The proposed project would be comprised of a new four-story medical office building measuring approximately 60 feet in height to finished roof and approximately 74 feet to top of mechanical screens on the rooftop. The proposed building would provide approximately 160,000 gross square feet of medical office use for specialty outpatient services. The expected number of on-site staff, at peak, would be approximately 300 persons.

    The proposed project would also include the construction of a four-story parking garage across an internal roadway west of the proposed medical office building. It would accommodate five levels of parking, with 730 new vehicle parking spaces." 

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

Santa Cruz Changes: 41 - Calypso

Here's another big rental-housing project that's currently in the City of Santa Cruz planning pipeline, at 130 Center Street - across from the Washington Street corner of Depot Park. Odd naming aside (Calypso?), it's another Swenson project, similar (but much taller) to the Swenson rebuild of the St. George Hotel. Like the St. George, all of the apartments will be single room occupancy (SRO). Unlike the St. George, these 233 studios will come in three distinct sizes. The U-shaped building will surround a central courtyard, elevated one floor above street level. 

The elevation view above is from Center Street. The neo-Spanish styling is similar to the condos on Pacific Avenue, which can be seen in the background at right in the current view from the same direction (shown below).

The project will replace two auto-related businesses: Chris Bordner Auto Body, and the Hertz rental lot. Another business in this row, Scott's Body Shop (visible at far left above), is not included in this project, and will remain between the apartments and the Blackburn House apartments. 

2024 update: although only minor construction has begun, it appears that the Scott's Body Shop lot has been added to the project. That business is now closed.