Downtown Santa Cruz’s 12-story, 1,600-unit SoLa vision around new Warriors arena aims to thread multiple needles

In a four-hour session that stretched late into Tuesday evening, the Santa Cruz City Council, joined by its appointed planning commissioners, examined the first draft of a vision for the new South of Laurel Area District, or SoLa. The long-discussed southward expansion of the city’s dense and bustling downtown aims to make room for a permanent Santa Cruz Warriors arena, 1,600 housing units and residential towers up to 12 stories tall, all fit into a modern, pedestrian- and bicycle-centered entertainment district. A city policy also calls for 20% of the new units developed to be affordable. 

The Tuesday meeting was advertised as a “study session” on the first draft of the new neighborhood’s land-use plan. City planning staff is now charged with taking feedback, which residents can provide until July 10, and further fleshing out the plan over the next few months before producing an environmental impact report this fall. A final draft and public hearings are expected early next year. 

The development is a major one for Santa Cruz, and also raises big questions about the changing city, afflicted by extreme unaffordability pressures. How does a community — from the residents and their elected leaders, to hired experts, financiers, merchants and business leaders — build a new downtown neighborhood? Which questions would they have? What are the pressing concerns? 

Creating a new neighborhood is complex work, made even thornier as Sacramento continues to hand down rapidly evolving housing laws. Mayor Fred Keeley, referencing a conversation he had with Planning Director Lee Butler, likened it to threading multiple moving needles. Today, California cities cannot halt a project that offers affordable housing and meets local design standards. And projects that offer a certain threshold of affordable housing can ignore local restrictions on height and density.

Andy Schiffrin, a longtime political advisor in Santa Cruz County, said the “state has fundamentally changed our [land-use] reality,” leaving the city a difficult task in controlling the size and scope of development in a new neighborhood. 

The Warriors’ new arena is viewed as the necessary and primary mover in making SoLa work as a vibrant entertainment district. The Warriors are not only leading on the sports venue, but in developing multifamily housing in the area to help underwrite its arena. On Tuesday, Chris Murphy, president of the Santa Cruz Warriors, reemphasized the team’s commitment to staying in Santa Cruz and fitting into the city’s envisioned 12-story, 1,600-unit vision.  

“We want to work together with the community and the city to make this a permanent home,” Murphy said. He said the Warriors, and a development team they’ve been working with, are “still very much on board with this plan and support this plan.” 

The vision is to bridge three of Santa Cruz’s most distinct features: its central business district around Pacific Avenue, the San Lorenzo River, and its beachfront. The SoLa neighborhood is envisioned to act as that connective tissue, while also standing as an entertainment district with outdoor dining, local small businesses, a dense population of new residents and an arena for sports, concerts and live shows. 

Over the next 10 to 15 years, the new land-use plan for SoLa is expected to spur the redevelopment of 29 acres south of Laurel Street. Today, that neighborhood features an outdated temporary basketball arena, an Ace Hardware store, a tire shop and a used car lot, but also a bike shop, motels, an apartment building and small businesses owned by local people who, as Tuesday’s meeting showed, are anxious about their own situations and whether they fit into the city’s future. 

The proposed zoning for the new neighborhood sets height limits at 85 feet (about seven stories) for the blocks at the fours corners of the intersection of Spruce and Front streets. City staff expects the new Warriors arena to be located at one of the two southern blocks at the intersection, either replacing the existing arena or moving across Front Street where Firefly Coffee House sits. Farther down Pacific Avenue, along the lots currently occupied by housing and hotels such as the South Pacific Apartments and the Ocean Pacific Lodge, height limits will rise to 70 feet, or five to six stories. 

The city’s policy for the SoLa district wants to keep buildings from rising above 12 stories. However, that policy, set in January 2023, predates many of the shifts in state law that allows projects such as the controversial Clocktower Center, a 16-story mixed-use housing development envisioned behind the town clock by local developer Workbench.

“I appreciate the [city council’s] original scaling down [to 12 stories], but how can you legally cap height in one area of town if it’s a free-for-all in other areas?” local activist Gillian Greensite asked the city council and planning commissioners. “Is that realistic or just hopeful? I would like to see more realism moving forward.” 

Greensite’s question, and others’, made clear that, although eyed for the opposite, northern end of downtown, the Clocktower Center has cast a long shadow over any discussion of new local development. That project is proposed for 2020 N. Pacific Ave., in a zone that allows only 50 feet in height, roughly four to five stories. In the preliminary application, the developers say that state law allows the project to go as high as 16 stories with more than 260 housing units. 

Parking was the other theme of the evening’s questioning. State law doesn’t require downtown development to include onsite parking, which has led to some discomfort among residents and city leaders. Councilmember Martine Watkins and Planning Commissioner John McKelvey raised concerns that the city was trying to create an entertainment district to draw more visitors and residents to the area with nowhere to park. 

Claire Gallogly, city transportation planner, said the city could require only the new Warriors arena to include on-site parking for staff. 

One resident of the neighborhood, who identified herself as Lucy, said she has to commute an hour to support her family. The thought of coming home and having nowhere to park concerned her. 

“I cannot help but sympathize with working mothers and fathers, how their life will be,” she said. “Santa Cruz is not only a tourist town. It’s our home. I tried so hard to make a living here. Please, make the units available to everyone.” 

Keeley emphasized that Tuesday’s meeting was only the start of a long public engagement process on the project. Residents have until July 10 to make comments on the first draft. Staff will then work to incorporate feedback before putting together an environmental impact report on the project, expected to publish around September. 

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