Quick Take
The Santa Cruz City Council approved Workbench’s scaled-down Clocktower Center project — originally hailed by its developers as something “Santa Cruz hasn’t seen.” The vote ends more than a year of fierce public debate and cements the controversial development as a high-profile product of California’s pro-housing state laws.
The Clocktower Center, the single-most debated and discussed development proposal in Santa Cruz for more than a year, successfully moved through city council approval Tuesday, clearing the way for construction.
The Santa Cruz City Council greenlit the eight-story, 178-unit project in a 5-1 vote, with District 4 Councilmember Scott Newsome voting against. District 2 Councilmember Sonja Brunner’s work with the Downtown Association disqualified her from voting on this downtown mixed-use project. Newsome did not offer a reason for his objection, and did not respond to Lookout’s request for comment.
The Clocktower Center is slated for 2020 N. Pacific Ave., and will rise behind the city’s town clock, replacing the old Santa Cruz Community Bank building, as well as the Rush Inn dive bar and the adjoining Anderson Christie real estate storefront. The project is owned, designed and will be developed by local firm Workbench, which has earned a reputation for splashy, multi-family project proposals throughout Santa Cruz County and the region.
Jamileh Cannon, chief architect and co-founder of Workbench, said the Clocktower Center represented the firm’s flagship project, and that she was excited for it to be part of this next burgeoning era of Santa Cruz’s urban development, pointing to projects like the La Bahia Hotel, which is set open next month, the downtown library mixed-use project to break ground next week, and the Cruz Hotel, expected break ground within a year.
Tuesday’s meeting represented a turn of fortune for the Clocktower Center. The planning commission unanimously approved the development in June. However, it rejected Workbench’s request that the unit balconies on two sides include a 4½-foot diameter of usable space for tenants — city code allows for only 3 feet. After an environmental group appealed the planning commission’s approval on account of the planned removal of two mature redwoods on the property, Workbench also appealed the project to relitigate the balcony issue.
In approving the project, the city council overturned the planning commission’s balcony restriction, allowing Workbench’s vision to proceed as proposed.
The city council was unable to find a way to keep the two redwood trees on the property, as requested by local environmental group Save Our Big Trees. Workbench argued that state law prevented the city council from requiring the developer to redesign the project at such a late stage in the approval process, claims that city staff confirmed. However, the council, led in this case by Councilmember Susie O’Hara, whose District 5 surrounds the project, directed staff to explore changing the city’s code to catch potential tree issues in future developments earlier in the process.
One lingering question is how Workbench will treat several spaces in the Clocktower Center proposal currently advertised as “amenity spaces.” Although they are not marked as housing units now, state law allows the developer to convert them into additional housing — a multi-family housing equivalent to converting a garage into an accessory dwelling unit (ADU).
Last year, Workbench designed a five-story multi-family project proposed to replace The Food Bin on Santa Cruz’s Mission Street. In that proposal, Workbench was transparent that it planned to convert 11 “amenity spaces” into ADUs. The city council rebuffed the idea, and approved the project but eliminated the future ADU-like spaces. The property owner, Doug Wallace, sued the city council and lost, but the suit has since been appealed and remains active. The project will remain in limbo until a court rules on the appeal; however, without the ADU-like units, the project is unlikely to move forward.
To find a local poster child for the build, build, build ethos of California state law over the past eight years, look no further than Workbench and, more specifically, its Clocktower Center project.
Beneath Workbench’s reputation for in-your-face proposals that command the community’s attention is a seemingly unparalleled grasp of the many new state laws that make the projects it proposes both legal and nearly impossible for a local government to stop.
Initially, Workbench envisioned a 16-story, 260-unit version of the Clocktower Center. At the time Workbench submitted the project in April 2024, founder Tim Gordin promised it would be a project “Santa Cruz hasn’t seen.”
The proposal, as well as its early renderings, threw gasoline on Santa Cruz’s decades-old growth debate and sent locals into a frenzy. Those who lauded the project pointed to its proposed 260 housing units as a tonic to the city’s housing shortage. Many of the tower’s opponents complained about a lack of parking, and feared it signaled an end to Santa Cruz’s small beach town spirit.
In a community meeting about the project in the summer of 2024, Workbench co-founder Cannon said local politics wouldn’t have any bearing on the project’s viability thanks to state laws that protect legal housing developments from city council or planning commission discretion. Despite proposing to stand twice as tall as any other building in Santa Cruz County, planning staff determined that Clocktower Center fit within a legal frame, thanks in large part to the state’s density bonus law, which allows housing developments with certain percentages of subsidized housing to double the amount of housing units it includes in a project.
Despite the paved political path, the Clocktower Center’s momentum slowed as it met that fiscally conservative coterie known as the investment market. During an on-stage interview with Lookout last year, Workbench partner Sibley Simon said the project was too one-of-a-kind, and represented too much risk for investors.
Workbench eventually resized the project to eight stories and 178 units, but it still didn’t win over many of its opponents.
As the city council prepared to deliberate on Tuesday night, Keith McHenry, a local activist and leader of Food Not Bombs — the project that feeds homeless people under the town clock on weekends — was preparing to protest outside.
“Save Santa Cruz from these developers,” McHenry said, testing his megaphone as he paced the courtyard, alone.
McHenry then took a seat behind an unfolded table, covered with pastries and piles of printed-out articles he’s authored, on everything from downtown Santa Cruz development to lithium-ion batteries and the world order. He said Tuesday night’s rally wasn’t about changing the city council’s mind on the Clocktower Center.
“I’m just trying to get the word out to regular people about the dystopian digital matrix behind all these buildings,” McHenry said. Then he pointed to the city council chambers. “We don’t care about that. I’ve been speaking to the city council since 1988. You can vote for what you want, but your vote never counts. It doesn’t count anymore.”
Have something to say? Lookout welcomes letters to the editor, within our policies, from readers. Guidelines here.