Quick Take
Capitola’s plan to fortify Cliff Drive against storms and sea-level rise will cost far more than expected — up to $80 million — forcing the city to phase construction over many years.
After a battering during the 2023 winter storms that saw swells eat into the city’s coastal cliffs, officials in Capitola envisioned a plan to reinforce one of the city’s most iconic and busiest roads against the future tempests and rising tides.
The high-level proposal for the Cliff Drive resiliency project included reinforced bluffs and an overhaul of the pedestrian, bicycle and car lanes along the roughly third of a mile between the Capitola Village and the city’s western limit, marked by the forked juncture of Cliff, Opal Cliff and Portola drives. Early cost estimates last summer put the project between $10 million and $15 million.
However, elected officials learned late last month that the city’s cost estimates were far off. Public works director Jessica Kahn told Lookout on Wednesday that the real number is likely closer to $70 to $80 million. With only a fraction of that cost — $10.5 million — committed through a federal grant, the Cliff Drive resiliency project now must be broken into an indeterminate number of phases, with no guaranteed funding for future phases.
On Thursday, the city’s planning commission is set to vote on zoning amendments required for the first phase of the project, which will focus on shoring up what city engineers view as the most vulnerable section of the bluff, near the lower parking area. The actual construction design will begin after the city council gives a final stamp of approval to the zoning changes this fall, but preliminary details include embedding a shotcrete tieback wall — essentially a frame that protects and holds the cliff face in place — and additional rock slope protection.
A long-term overhaul of the bike and pedestrian infrastructure along Cliff Drive is still part of the plan, but in the meantime, Kahn said the city is aiming to carve out a protected bike lane on the ocean side of the thoroughfare.
How did the city so dramatically underestimate the cost of the project? Kahn said her department based the initial cost off a similar coastal resiliency project; however, after more research, her team realized the project on which they based their estimates was completed on a stretch of bluff with a beach at its base. There is no beach below Cliff Drive, which Kahn said completely changes the construction strategy.
Instead of starting from the base and working up, which workers could do if there were a beach below, the Cliff Drive project will have to happen from the top down, which Kahn said multiplies the cost of construction well beyond initial estimates.
Kahn said the timeline for reinforcing the rest of Cliff Drive depends on funding. She told Lookout that coastal resiliency projects like Cliff Drive are “attractive” to government grant programs, but the city doesn’t have any estimate on when the project will be completed. Work on the first section of the bluff is expected to break ground in 2027.
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