Quick Take
New Leaf Community Markets will close its downtown Santa Cruz location on Tuesday at 7 p.m. A new tenant for the Pacific Avenue spot has not yet been identified, but city officials say they hope that another grocery store will open in the space to serve the growing downtown community. New Leaf plans to open a new larger grocery store on River Street next year.
After almost 20 years in downtown Santa Cruz, New Leaf Community Markets will close its Pacific Avenue location Tuesday at 7 p.m. Its departure leaves the downtown community with just one grocery store – Trader Joe’s on Front Street – during a time of rapid change.
The grocery chain, which was founded in Santa Cruz in 1985, plans to reopen in a larger location in the Gateway Plaza on River Street in 2025. The new market’s 29,000-square-foot footprint will include more prepared food, a larger produce selection, more local and organic products and an expanded meat and seafood department, beyond what the 9,000-square-foot Pacific Avenue store could provide. New Leaf first announced the move in October 2023.
“The new River Street store is just 1 mile away from our current store and will be a much bigger, more full-service format that can better serve our Santa Cruz customers,” brand manager Lindsay Gizdich told Lookout in June.
Staff from the downtown store have been offered positions at one of the other local New Leaf markets, including a new Capitola store that is expected to open this year, Gizdich said via email.
A new tenant has not yet been identified for the Pacific Avenue location. Reuben Helick, managing director at Cushman & Wakefield, the company that manages the property, said the company is in the process of marketing the space for lease. “We do have focused interest from a few potential tenants. We are in the process of vetting them now,” he said.
City leaders said they hope that the new tenant will be another grocery store. “Since there are so many housing units online, that’s a good use of the space,” said Josie Buchanan, a coordinator in Santa Cruz’s economic development department.
While there are other commercial spaces available in the city-owned Pacific Station North and Pacific Station South developments with cold storage that could potentially accommodate a grocery store, “it’s not something we’ve been approached on directly,” said business liaison Sarah Domondon. “No one is slating those spots specifically for a grocery store the way that New Leaf is specifically built out for it.”
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