Santa Cruz’s Pacific Avenue is starting to look like Everywhere Else

When I first walked down Pacific Avenue four years ago, I felt like the city’s soul matched my own: a little messy, deeply curious, and unafraid to be different. 

Music emerged from every direction, the shops were eclectic, people in rucksacks shuffled past. Eccentricity felt like the norm rather than the exception.

I saw a community I wanted to be part of, making my move from New York to attend UC Santa Cruz a no-brainer. 

But in the four years I’ve lived in Santa Cruz, I’ve noticed a shift on Pacific Avenue: community-centered spaces are scarcer, and many are being replaced by fast-fashion retail chains.   

In the past two years, we witnessed iconic and beloved music venue The Catalyst face the threat of demolition, New Leaf Community Market leave Pacific Avenue without a grocery store. We also lost O’Neill Surf Shop’s flagship store, created by Santa Cruz surf legend Jack O’Neill. 

CHANGING SANTA CRUZ: Lookout news and Community Voices opinion coverage of ongoing development in the city

When I go downtown today, I see an iconic venue under threat, that we are down a grocery store, and that we have 10 standing vacancies. Honestly, Pacific Avenue has started to feel less like a community hub and more like a Westfield. 

Last January, we got a giant, glossy Anthropologie in place of New Leaf, one of the 13 new businesses to hit Pacific Avenue in 2026. City planners hyped the opening for months, and local news promoted the store’s arrival as a big win for the community.

I disagree. 

Anthropologie is one of the broader chain’s 657 stores across 48 states; it’s one of 784 stores, if we include international locations. Corporate owner URBN parents two other Pacific Avenue retailers – Urban Outfitters and Free People. 

As I see it, each chain store means less room for local business. Less character. Less local identity.

The URBN franchise claims to curate “unique retail experiences” for customers – an experience including clothes “purchased as finished products from independent third-party suppliers” and manufactured from non-biodegradable materials like polyester and nylon. 

A disappointing replacement for a decades-old local grocer.

I’ve spent quite a bit of time at Anthropologie, and I’ve found that there’s remarkably little humanity in the brand’s product production.  

A few months ago, I bought Free People’s “See Me Softspun Pullover” for $128. After one wash, I had to sew the sleeve back together. It’s made of 48% polyester and 32% wool. In Anthropologie on Pacific Avenue, I stumbled upon “The Haley Boat-Neck Wool Blend Sweater” for $118. It’s identical to the one sold at Free People, and made of the exact same stuff. 

Why do we keep falling for it? Why did I – a college student paying off loans – fall for it? Clothing used to have character, quality. 

I’ve fallen in love with the Santa Cruz community. I just don’t think Anthropologie reflects local needs or values.

While sifting through the Chuck and Esther Abbott slide collection in the UCSC Library Special Collections, I discovered the Pacific Garden Mall, Pacific Avenue’s past life, before the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. 

From the 1960s until the earthquake, downtown Santa Cruz served as a center for social connection and creative inspiration. Categorized by its large, lush sidewalks and the Cooper House – a central gathering ground with stained glass and a candy shack, rebuilt as Abbott Square in 2017 – downtown supplied social nourishment and was a place to connect. In 2009, in a Good Times article, Bruce Bratton remembered it as the “happiest, busiest, gathering, shopping-drinking place.”

I spend a ton of time downtown and hear people reminisce on these days more than you’d guess. 

The mall was the town’s mitochondria. But as I write this, I worry that connection is slipping. Downtown is feeling more like Everywhere Else and less like Santa Cruz. 

The original “Bank of Italy” sign still hangs outside Anthropologie, a stale reminder of the  rich history when downtown flourished.  

I realize it is difficult to find independent retailers these days. But community members in Santa Cruz are clearly consumer-conscious; many of us are looking to upcycle and avoid plastics, and we know we can find better made for less at places like Grey Bears, Flipside or The Abbot’s Thrift (none of which are currently located on Pacific).

Last time I went to Abbot’s, I found a Free People dress for $20 – it still had the tag on and retailed for $140.  

The space at 1134 Pacific Ave. could’ve been another Grey Bears or Santa Cruz Gear Exchange. Anthropologie, Urban Outfitters and Free People sell expensive cute stuff, and it’s marketed well. True confession: The first time I went in, I bought two polka-dot Reformation tops. I regret it now as I’d rather buy local or secondhand. 

I wish the city planners supported this mindset by promoting ethically sourced, sustainable businesses. 

When I walk downtown these days, I can’t help but notice the change from just four short years ago – and I wonder what kind of downtown we’re quietly agreeing to: one defined by conscious consumption, or one akin to every other retail corridor in the country?

Carly Pavlin is a 21-year-old New York native, UC Santa Cruz student and writer now based in Santa Cruz. When she’s not writing, she’s surfing, waitressing or road-tripping along the coast. In spring, she took Lookout Community Voices opinion editor Jody K. Biehl’s “How To Write Like a Journalist” course at UCSC, where she began writing her first piece, marking the beginning of what she hopes will be a lifelong writing career. 

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