Santa Cruz will explore conversion of downtown library into housing and permanent farmers market

With construction set to soon begin on the highly anticipated downtown Santa Cruz library/affordable housing project, a renewed focus has been placed on the future of the existing library at 224 Church St. 

On Tuesday, the Santa Cruz City Council in a unanimous vote told its planning and economic development staff to begin exploring options to put a mixed-use development on the barely 1.5-acre lot, with housing, office space for city workers and just under an acre for a civic plaza that could permanently host the downtown farmers market. 

The existing, city-owned lot — which incorporates almost the entire block between Locust Street to the north and Church Street to the south, and Cedar and Center streets to the east and west — has long been eyed for redevelopment, with a public park or plaza in mind. 

As it sits today, the property is largely made up of the library structure and a pair of adjacent parking lots and has, for years, represented a sort of dead zone in the downtown neighborhood. As city leaders work to meet the dynamic challenges of maintaining a vibrant city center into the future, they say the existing library lot could become an important piece of the downtown identity. 

Vice Mayor Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson said a mixed-use redevelopment of the property would fit in with the going philosophy of modern downtowns. 

“Folks want to come downtown to have an experience,” said Kalantari-Johnson, adding that the right vision could turn the area into a space for “gathering and community.” 

The mayor and councilmembers unanimously preferred the second of three broad visions presented by the city’s economic development team, which included room for 102 residential units, roughly 19,000 square feet of office space, 84 permanent market vendor stalls and just under 1 acre for a public plaza that would also permanently host the farmers market. 

The other options included room for 154 housing units, roughly 31,000 square feet of office space, 84 market stalls and just over a half-acre public plaza; or no housing, about 21,000 square feet of office space, a roughly 1-acre plaza and the same number of vendor stalls. 

The proposal reemphasized the ties among the library, the farmers market and affordable housing in downtown Santa Cruz. The Wednesday farmers market has, for decades, occupied the expansive Lot 4 along Cedar Street, but will be forced to relocate as the city prepares to start construction on the mixed-use library and 124-unit affordable housing project in May. The farmers market will temporarily be held on a combination of Cedar and Church streets and one of the existing library’s parking lots. 

Residents at the meeting all spoke in favor of the proposal to turn the property into a mixed-use public plaza, including Lira Filippini, a leader of the political group Our Downtown, Our Future. In 2022, Filippini led a ballot measure that would have killed the proposal for a new library at Lot 4 in favor of a vague vision for a public plaza. Calling in to the meeting on Tuesday, Filippini applauded the city council and said she was “in full support” of the idea.

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