Quick Take
A new restaurant, lifeguard station and market space are expected at the Capitola Wharf after the plan got an initial green light Thursday from the city council. Councilmembers will hold a final vote on the wharf’s master plan in the fall.
Plans for a new two-story restaurant, permanent bathroom, lifeguard station and flexible market space on the Capitola Wharf moved forward unanimously Thursday at the Capitola City Council. The final master plan for the wharf, with exact site maps, conceptual renderings and the required environmental review, will be submitted to the council for adoption sometime in the fall.
Powerful winter storms in 2023 damaged the wharf’s pilings, breaking the 855-foot structure in half. The existing restaurant and bait shop were demolished in February 2024. A wider 40-foot wharf reopened without the restaurant in September 2024. Community donations helped raise $425,000 for bike racks, benches and interpretive signs.
A restaurant with a full kitchen will cost between $5.2 and $6.2 million, according to a staff report. Funding from the City of Capitola would cover only up to $3 million, so any additional costs associated with a restaurant would have to come from private investment.
City staff compared what they want to do with the Capitola Wharf to the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf, where 40-year leases are given to investors to erect buildings in exchange for 3% of gross revenue.
The city hired consulting firm Fuse to poll the public on what features they would like to see on the wharf, starting from scratch.
Fuse polled over 1,000 people about what public amenities to put on the wharf. Of those polled, 499 were Capitola residents, a large number, staff said. The seven options were: “open space,” “open space and mobile vendors,” “existing fishing concession,” “new fishing concession,” “fishing concession and mobile vendors,” “fishing concession and flexible market” and “permanent structures.”
The last two options garnered the most support with “permanent structures” garnering over 400 votes, according to the Fuse’s public outreach.The consultants then created a hybrid of multiple visions for the master plan, combining fishing concessions, space for mobile vendors and permanent structures. According to the preliminary estimates, this will cost between $2.5 and $6.2 million.
Councilmembers expressed a desire to move forward with a lifeguard tower and a bathroom at the end of the wharf in the interim while the larger project to redevelop the wharf grinds forward. Teresa Locke, a nearby resident, mentioned how she fishes at the end of the wharf and said it would be nice to have something to eat.
“I think the idea of a temporary hot dog or hamburger stand on the wharf sometime soon would be a good one,” Councilmember Susan Westman said. “While we all want this to go forward, we all know a project like this would take a bit of time and it won’t happen soon.”
Westman, who was appointed to council earlier this month, also proposed an illustrative pole to show the height of the two-story building and tape marking the footprints of the buildings so people can visualize for themselves, ahead of when the council is set to vote on the plan in the fall.
There were also concerns from the public about future storms destroying the wharf given the repeated and extensive damage the structure has suffered in recent years.
Engineers at Moffatt & Nichol told staff a two-story building could actually stabilize the wharf by applying downward pressure when wave action pushes the pilings up into the deck during heavy storms.
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