Quick Take
Lori Greymont, owner of the property where the Silver Spur restaurant sits, met with community members on Thursday to outline her plan to build a 90-unit assisted living/memory care facility on the site. The meeting was mostly civil, but many in the crowd were skeptical of the plan and its effect on traffic, parking and infrastructure in the neighborhood.
About 70 people crowded into the Silver Spur in Soquel on Thursday evening, not for omelets and cinnamon rolls, but instead for a public meeting to hear about plans for the property at Soquel Drive and Mattison Lane that includes the popular breakfast spot.
Real estate developer Lori Greymont, who owns the property, was on hand to outline her proposed development project, a 90-unit assisted living/memory care facility for older adults. Greymont and architect Anthony Ho of LPMD Architects presented floor plans and drawings for the project, which would put a new three-story building on the site and raze the current Silver Spur building and a neighboring business, Attilia’s Antiques.
Before the often skeptical and defiant crowd, Greymont said that the new project does not necessarily mean that the Spur, which has been serving local diners for more than 50 years, would be permanently expelled from the site. The building’s plans include a front-facing retail space that, Greymont said, could possibly house a new reincarnation of the Silver Spur. She suggested the Spur’s staff might also be contracted to prepare the food for the residents of the new facility in a separate kitchen.
The restaurant’s co-owners, Daniel Govea and Juan Valencia, were also in attendance. Even in the best-case scenario for the restaurant, in which the Spur would return to its well-known spot on Soquel Drive as part of a new building, the restaurant would either have to move to another site or remain closed for about two years during construction.
The project has not yet been submitted to Santa Cruz County’s planning department for approval, and Thursday’s meeting was required before the property owners could submit the plan. District 1 County Supervisor Manu Koenig, whose district includes the property at the border of Soquel and Live Oak, was also on hand to hear the presentation.
In her comments, Greymont, a real estate developer and TV host, said she first decided to pursue the project six years ago when she was searching for an assisted-living community for her father, who was suffering from dementia. In attempting to illustrate the need for such facilities, she cited a statistic claiming that “within 12 minutes from here, there are more than 500 seniors who need” assisted-living or memory-care living arrangements.
In front of architectural drawings and floor plans, she said of the new project, “We don’t want to make it look institutional, but more like a townhouse.” She said the experience for the residents would be something like “a cruise ship, except living on land.”
Generally, the assembled crowd was less interested in hearing about the amenities of the proposed senior living project and more focused on infrastructure issues such as traffic, parking and sewer/water capacity. Greymont and her team took questions from the crowd and wrote down concerns on a large tablet. Several in the audience spoke out in defense of the Silver Spur (including asking questions about the fate of the building’s famous mural), but most were more concerned about the impact the new development would have on the neighborhood.
The back-and-forth was mostly civil, though some of the comments grew heated. One local resident, Richard Baker of Soquel, asked Greymont what the new project would charge prospective residents for units in the new building. When she said she didn’t know yet, Baker accused her of withholding information. “You’ve made the cost/benefit analysis on this,” he said, “otherwise you wouldn’t be doing it.”
Others expressed concern and frustration not necessarily at Greymont’s project, but the general trend for housing developments, citing nearby proposals for new development at Thurber Lane and at 41st Avenue. “Why does this always get thrown in our laps?” said one commenter.
One person questioned Greymont’s assertion that assisted living for older adults is critically needed: “If the need is so great, why just 90 units?” Greymont said that three stories and 90 units is about the maximum that the site could support, and that county rules would allow.
The plans for the new development have yet to be submitted to the county, and the road to opening a new assisted living/memory care facility on the site is expected to be a long one. If the project moves forward, the Silver Spur will still likely be in business in its historic location for between two and three years before it will be forced to close or relocate.
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