Somewhere in the offices of Google Street View – we presume less than an hour’s drive away from here, at the Googleplex in Mountain View – there is probably a sticky note on someone’s computer screen: “Get over to Santa Cruz.”
If there’s not such a note, there really should be.
Obviously, the Street View camera car has not visited downtown Santa Cruz since pre-pandemic days. A tour of Pacific Avenue and Front Street on Street View now is a revelation for the nostalgia-inclined, a self-guided tour of not only defunct businesses but entire buildings that don’t exist anymore. (Oh where have ye gone, University Copy?)
But what’s most startling about this laptop adventure through 2017 Santa Cruz is all that sunshine hitting pavement on Front Street. You can actually see the sky. No monolithic, anonymous apartment buildings creating canyons and shadows.
Of course, it’s also possible that the sticky note at Google reads: “Get over the Santa Cruz – but not quite yet. Think 2029.”
Downtown Santa Cruz is going through a thing. It is, in fact, right in the middle of a long, historic, ultimately transformative process. And, like similar periods of change – adolescence, childbirth, divorce – one’s perspective on the experience, while in the middle of it, is suspect.
The construction boom downtown has created a cascade of negativity from locals convinced that Santa Cruz is shedding whatever distinctively eccentric personality it once had in favor of a bland and generic future many associate, fairly or not, with San Jose.
The news last month that there is now a proposal filed with the city to demolish the landmark Catalyst building on Pacific Avenue and construct yet another apartment building has brought a gusher of new energy to the doomsayers. That proposal might in fact be the – ahem – catalyst that galvanizes a new anti-development movement and sparks a long-overdue conversation between the city and its residents in dramatic showdowns or protests like we haven’t seen to date: How much is too much development? What are we losing with all this construction (and accompanying destruction)?
Ground and site preparation for the new library complex is currently underway along Cedar Street between Lincoln and Cathcart. Credit: City of Santa Cruz
In the meantime, as we stumble into 2026, it’s a good moment to assess where the city is in its process of transformation. To be sure, the battleships turn slowly when it comes to this level of urban metamorphosis.
The Catalyst proposal, for instance, is only in the “pre-application” phase, meaning it has not yet even been formally submitted as a formal proposal. The city’s planning department is helping the project’s developers meet the requirements for that formal proposal. What follows is a long process of design and code compliance, public input, construction planning, various permitting procedures and city council approval before the first action is taken on site. On top of that, private developers and contractors have their own processes when it comes to funding and planning that could add months or years to any given project. The bottom line is that at the end of 2025, downtown Santa Cruz is still somewhere in the middle of a long journey. If the city’s residents are squirming in the back seat and asking “Are we there yet?,” there’s only one answer: “Not by a long shot.”
Here comes the library
Perhaps the most symbolically meaningful project of all the plans downtown is the new downtown branch of the Santa Cruz Public Libraries, which will slowly rise up from the vast parking lot on Cedar Street between Lincoln and Cathcart streets. Most of the construction downtown is done mostly for the benefit of those who might move into those buildings, but the library ostensibly is for everyone.
It’s been three years already since Measure O, the contentious ballot measure that sought to stop the construction of the new library, was rejected by voters. But it was only in 2025 that passersby started seeing real action happening on site. Today, groundwork and site preparation are underway as the project moves toward Phase I of its buildout. The project also includes a housing element, 124 units designated as “affordable,” which means a deed-restricted limit on rents based on a percentage of area median income (AMI) in the region. Also part of the project is a child-care center and a parking garage.
Phase I will entail the core and shell construction of the housing part of the project, and the city said that it is possible that framing could go up by the end of 2026. The housing part is expected to be completed by the end of 2027. Phase II will consist of the library itself, a massive 41,000-square-foot facility with a rooftop deck. The library is expected to be completed and open sometime in the spring or summer of 2028.
In the meantime, there is a sense of optimism and possibility, at least at Friends of the Santa Cruz Public Libraries, the nonprofit fundraising arm of the project. The Friends are only raising money for Phase II of the project.
“We are completely focused on the structure of the library itself,” said Friends executive director Sarah Beck.
As for the fundraising, Beck said the goal of the capital campaign is to reach $3 million by the fall of 2026, and that it has reached more than $2.5 million, “so we’re about 75% there.”
Santa Cruz emerging: Looking north at the under-construction transit station. Pacific Station North is to the left, and the soon-to-open River Row apartments are on Front Street, on the right. In the distance are two murals that remind people that they’re still in Santa Cruz. Credit: Wallace Baine / Lookout Santa Cruz
The campaign is pushing to raise donations from individuals as well as businesses, offering to engrave donors’ names on the wall of the lobby of the finished library. “We certainly have a lot of momentum now,” she said. “The donor recognition in this space is going to be really special.”
Here’s a rundown of what else is happening on the development front downtown, including projects in between the town clock and Laurel Street. In that footprint alone are more than 1,000 units, as well as a 232-room hotel, all either recently completed, soon to open, or proposed.
COMPLETED AND OPEN
Anton Pacific, 800 Pacific Ave. (at Laurel)
The Anton Pacific building, which features 207 market-rate units, opened in July 2024. It offers studios, one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments, with base rents ranging from $4,549 to $6,122 per month.
Pacific Station South, 818 Pacific Ave.
Pacific Station South features 85 units at “affordable” rates. There is currently a waitlist for studio, one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments.
525 Cedar Street
The 525 Cedar Street development opened in 2024, across from the lot where the downtown library mixed-use project is now under construction. Credit: Kevin Painchaud / Lookout Santa Cruz
The new apartment building next to Calvary Episcopal Church on Cedar Street opened in 2024 with 64 affordable units (rents ranging from around $1,600 to around $2,600 per month). It has closed its waitlists for now. The ground-floor retail space has new signage, announcing Gran Gelato Caffe, but there is no indication when that business might open.
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
River Row
The first of the big development projects along the San Lorenzo Riverwalk, River Row, is poised to open in the early months of 2026. It features 175 studio, one- and two-bedroom units, with 20 units set aside as “affordable.”
Pacific Station North, 920 Pacific Ave.
A rendering of Pacific Station North and the rebuilt Metro transit depot, looking from Front Street toward Pacific Avenue. Credit: City of Santa Cruz
This apartment building of 128 affordable units is expected to open in the first months of 2026. The developer has an “interest list” on its website.
NOT YET BROKEN GROUND
530 Front Street
This proposed Swenson Builders development is to be on Front Street at Soquel Avenue, on the San Lorenzo Riverwalk, featuring seven- and eight-story buildings with 276 units, 37 units in the “affordable” range. The project was approved by the city council in 2023.
A rendering of the housing development proposed for the corner of Front and Laurel streets in downtown Santa Cruz. Credit: City of Santa Cruz
This project is situated on Front and Laurel streets, at the site of the current Ace Hardware building, which would be demolished. The eight-story building is expected to contain 245 units, with 49 affordable, developed by San Francisco-based Lincoln Property Company.
Cruz Hotel, 324 Front St.
This proposed hotel is to be constructed on Front Street at Laurel, at the site of the former Santa Cruz Community Credit Union building, which will be demolished. The city council approved the plan in 2024. It is to be a 232-room hotel, fronting on the San Lorenzo Riverwalk, with three floors of underground parking.
The Catalyst, 1011 Pacific Ave.
Credit: Kevin Painchaud / Lookout Santa Cruz
The seven-story housing project proposed for The Catalyst building on Pacific Avenue is in the pre-application phase, with a formal application expected to be submitted to the city in the spring of 2026. It would require the demolition of the current building, but the plans include a remodeled Catalyst on the ground floor.
901 Pacific Avenue
The former home of Andy’s Auto Supply on the intersection of Pacific Avenue and Maple Street, where a new housing project is proposed. Credit: Kevin Painchaud / Lookout Santa Cruz
This downtown development project would include a six-story building featuring 90 units, in its pre-application phase. Most units are expected to be market-rate rentals, with some — how many is yet to be determined — set aside in the affordable range. This is the old Andy’s Auto Supply building and the adjacent building, both of which would be demolished in this proposal.
Perhaps the critics of the rampant development downtown are right, and that Santa Cruz’s uniquely scruffy identity will be quietly extinguished by this wave of generic gentrification. Perhaps all these new units will be inhabited by amoral Silicon Valley bros with stock options in artificial intelligence companies. Perhaps we’ll all wake up one day and feel we’re in – shudder – Walnut Creek.
But there are other possibilities, that the new buildings will be inhabited by flesh-and-blood people, creative, interesting people ready to shape a new personality of the city. All we know for sure is that we can’t really trust the view of the other side when we’re still standing in the middle of the river.
-Wallace Baine, Lookout Santa Cruz, December 14, 2025
