Quick Take
O'Neill Surf Shop will be closing one of its five Santa Cruz County locations this month. The last day of business for the downtown Santa Cruz store is Jan. 14.
O’Neill Surf Shop announced it will be closing its 25-year-old downtown Santa Cruz store Jan. 14, but is maintaining its four other locations in the county.
In an emailed statement provided to Lookout, General Manager Tanner Beckett said the store at the corner of Pacific Avenue and Cooper Street is closing as the company “seeks to consolidate operations in an evolving retail landscape.”
Reached by phone Friday morning, Beckett declined to comment further on why the location will be shuttered.
O’Neill Surf Shop’s closure comes after other large retailers announced their departures from downtown. Grocery store New Leaf Community Markets left in October and is moving to a larger space on River Street, and clothing chain Forever 21 will close down at the end of this month.
It’s not yet clear what will happen to the store space after the surf shop vacates it, according to Cushman & Wakefield Managing Director Reuben Helick. The commercial real estate brokerage leases the space to O’Neill Surf Shop and the other units in the building to businesses like IT’SUGAR, Verizon Wireless and Kaiser Permanente.
Helick told Lookout he doesn’t think he’ll have a new tenant in the space for several months but he has interested parties.
He added that commercial real estate in the city center is facing a “tough market” but that downtown is going through a “transitional” period, with the city soon adding thousands of new units of housing in the area.
Jorian Wilkins, the executive director of Downtown Association of Santa Cruz, said she and association staff were “surprised by the news” of the O’Neill Surf Shop closure but said she didn’t know what prompted it.
Wilkins added that despite several recent store closures receiving a lot of attention, there are over 300 businesses downtown, many of them locally-owned and operated. Pacific Wave and Berdels surf shops downtown will also soon be joined by Midtown Surf Shop.
“Downtown will remain a destination for surf shoppers,” she wrote via email.
In the provided statement, Beckett wrote that O’Neill plans to offer employees of the downtown location jobs at its other stores.
Its four other locations include two stores on 41st Avenue in Capitola, one location at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk and one in Aptos Village.
O’Neill Surf Shop was founded in 1952 by wetsuit inventor Jack O’Neill.
FOR THE RECORD: This story has been updated with information from Reuben Helick, managing director for Cushman & Wakefield, and from Jorian Wilkins, the executive director of Downtown Association of Santa Cruz.
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