Motion Pacific dance studio struggles to find new home

Santa Cruz’s Motion Pacific Dance studio — just last month named “Community Builder of the Year” at the NEXTies awards show — might soon be without a permanent home. 

Motion Pacific and its community of dancers and instructors have known for several months that the studio’s time at its downtown location was coming to end. But, with its September move-out date drawing closer, the studio is no closer to finding a new space.

Motion Pacific will have to be out of its Front Street studio space — its home since 2011 — by Sept. 30. The building’s owner is Santa Cruz Seaside Co., the parent company of the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. Seaside spokesperson Kris Reyes said, “Our plan is to use the space to support Boardwalk operations.”

The studio was first informed that its lease would not be renewed in the fall of 2023. That lease agreement was set to expire in May 2024, but it was extended until September. Last fall, said Motion Pacific board member Collette Tabone, the studio was cautiously optimistic that it could find a suitable space. Since then, that optimism has collapsed, she said, in the face of high rents and expensive potential renovations.

“There were a few different spots we were able to look into,” she said. “But it really just came down to budget. Either the rent is outside what we could afford, and we couldn’t negotiate any lower, or the rent was possible, but the renovation costs, which have more than tripled since [our last move in] 2011, were just too much.”

Tabone said that the Seaside Co. had given Motion Pacific a break with lower rents during the COVID pandemic. But she was told that the building will now be used for storage for the Boardwalk.

Since last October, Motion Pacific has raised about $37,000 toward finding a permanent new space, but, with less than 120 days left until its move-out deadline, the studio has still not found a suitable place.

“We just can’t afford downtown anymore,” she said, “with the changing climate, and all of the development.”

Motion Pacific first opened in 1998 in the Front Street building that now houses Sherwin-Williams. Its mission was to offer dance classes and instruction in a wide variety of styles from jazz to hip-hop to contemporary. In 2007, squeezed by rising rents, the studio moved to the Art Center building on Center Street, and then to its present location on lower Front Street in 2011, in what had been an art gallery called The Mill. (Years ago, the building used to house a local taxi company.) 

Tabone said that Motion Pacific has around 1,000 adult dance students and about 100 youth dancers come through its space every year. Among its many programs is the popular Santa Cruz Dance Week, which takes over downtown with free dance performances every April. It employs 22 people, most of them dance instructors. 

The current site of Motion Pacific sits right in the center of the city’s ambitious Downtown Plan Expansion, which includes plans for new housing and possibly a new arena for the Santa Cruz Warriors. Reyes of the Seaside Co. said that there were no specific long-term plans for the property as it related to the South of Laurel Downtown Plan Expansion.

Tabone said that the South of Laurel plans sent a message to Motion Pacific long before it was formally informed that its lease would not be renewed and that it would have to, at some point, find a new home. She said Motion Pacific will continue to raise funds for the new move and engage its clientele with information about the move; it is still actively looking for a new space. 

“This will be our fourth move in our 25-year history,” said Tabone. “We’re incredibly resilient, and we have an incredible community around us that has helped us be resilient. And I do not think that Motion Pacific is [going out of business]. But it does mean that it’s going to be a bit of a struggle for us, and it does mean we are probably going to look a lot different. We’re not going to be able to offer the community all of the amazing programming that we’ve been building for the last 12 years in that space.”

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