Downtown Santa Cruz gets a hyperfocus
For months, we at Lookout have been working to better understand Santa Cruz’s downtown paradox.
Local leaders and city government have determined that the neighborhood will expand to become the entertainment and residential core of the city, hosting thousands of new housing units, a basketball arena/premier events venue, a public plaza and tens of thousands of square feet of new commercial space. Yet, as cranes and plans have moved in, more downtown businesses have moved out, adding to the vacant spaces landlords have struggled to fill.
That gap, and the work to bridge future vision and current reality, has come into full view over the past week.
On Thursday, the city’s planning commission greenlit regulatory changes that would facilitate the expansion of downtown to the area south of Laurel Street, or SoLa. Under development for more than four years, the changes will encourage taller, denser development in SoLa, where the city envisions 1,600 new housing units and structures as tall as 12 stories. The planning commission’s approval advances the changes to the city council, which could decide on the new neighborhood as soon as May.
And, as Lookout reported Monday, a Texas-based developer has already put forth a vision for an eight-story, 245-unit development in that soon-to-be neighborhood. Lincoln Property Company, out of Dallas, has submitted a pre-application with the city for what it’s calling SOLA 201, replete with shiny, bulky renderings. Local real estate man Owen Lawlor, who helped lead the push for the Cruz Hotel at the corner of Front and Laurel streets, is involved with the project.
But what about the current reality? The Santa Cruz City Council appears set to acknowledge this week that Pacific Avenue, with its fleeing retailers and creeping vacancy rate, needs some TLC.
On Tuesday, the city’s elected officials will vote on a downtown vibrancy ordinance that, in part, seeks some accountability measures for the landlords of long-vacant downtown storefronts. Property owners who have had empty storefronts for at least two years will have to register the vacancy with the city’s planning department, provide contact information for the owner and whoever is responsible for upkeep, as well as a maintenance plan, a description of the most recent legal use, and any future plans for the property. Oh, and the owner will have to pay a registration fee, the cost of which will be set at a future city council meeting.
OF NOTE
Capitola City Council’s Coastal Rail Trail cleaver: The Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission hoped the five-member Capitola City Council would support its plan to realign the coastal trail plans along the city’s lush Park Avenue. But the elected officials rejected the idea, springing more logistical headaches and costs onto the increasingly embattled rail plan. Santa Cruz County is lucky to have my colleague Max Chun around to explain what the heck this all means.
Adolfo in Mexico: In February, my colleague Tania Ortiz and I broke a story about longtime Santa Cruz resident Adolfo González’s sudden deportation to Mexico. Nearly three months later, Ortiz has an important follow-up on the struggles González has faced as he attempts to start anew in a country where he never expected to return.
POINTS FOR PARTICIPATION
Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf repairs: On Tuesday, along with the downtown vibrancy ordinance, the Santa Cruz City Council will consider pursuing a $1 million plan to repair the municipal wharf following the damage it suffered during strong winter tides. Instead of replacing the 150-foot section of the wharf swallowed up by the ocean, the city may choose to just shorten the structure and clean up the remaining splintered edge. The city council could later choose to replace the 150-foot section if state funding becomes available.
Santa Cruz police to defend their possession of military equipment: The Santa Cruz Police Department will offer its annual report on its possession of military-grade equipment, such as drones, armored vehicles and certain kinds of shotguns, to the city council on Tuesday. In a letter on behalf of the Santa Cruz County chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, chapter chair Peter Gelblum criticized SCPD for not properly tracking use by weapon — specifically for AR-15s — as required by law, and for proposing that officers be allowed to use non-inventoried military weapons in “exigent circumstances,” which is part of a trio of amendments the city council will consider on Tuesday.
At a public meeting in late March, SCPD said it planned to ask the city to upgrade the wireless technology for the department’s drones to 5G for better connectivity between the controller and the drone, improved video quality and faster download speeds. – With a report from Max Chun
ONE GREAT READ
After 40 years, Phish isn’t seeking resolution, by Amanda Petrusich for the New Yorker
Over the past three decades, I can confidently say I’ve listened to less than 20 minutes of Phish, the jam band as polarizing as it is essential in America’s live music fabric.
However, my own sonic prejudices fade when Amanda Petrusich authors a band profile for the New Yorker. I walked into this piece, apparently, as Petrusich did: skeptical but open; guarded against the Church of Phish’s evangelizing but also hoping to perhaps be a little convinced. Unsurprisingly, Petrusich delivers one of the more nuanced and wonderful profiles I’ve read in some time.
Here is one of my favorite passages: “Twenty Years Later” is a hopeful song, but the jam got heavy. “Often there is a moment when it feels like the safety rails fall off,” Anastasio wrote to me. “We lose any sense of time passing. Then I feel safe letting people see how I actually feel, which is terrified a lot of the time. Around eight minutes, it starts to feel like my heart is wide open. It feels like pure emotion when the music gets like that. No sense of notes/scales. Just energy.” He added, “It’s why people come.”
Achieving this sort of dissociative bliss is not uncommon when listening to Hindu bhajans or Gregorian chants or other forms of religious music; I last felt it in the Pindus Mountains of northern Greece, when a Roma clarinettist played a mirologi, or ancient Epirotic lament, directly into my ear, at two o’clock in the morning, in a dark forest. I bring this up simply to say that it’s extraordinary that this sort of thing — a fleeting doorway to nirvana — is regularly occurring for Phish fans in minor-league-hockey arenas.