The ‘Canyon’ is Coming: A Rapidly Developing Front Street Provides a Glimpse of Santa Cruz’s Future

In early 2025, Front Street is in the midst of a transformation that will make the area unrecognizable from the pre-pandemic era. Two enormous new apartment buildings — Anton Pacific and Pacific Station South — have already been completed between Front and Pacific Avenue. Another — Pacific Station North, currently under construction on Pacific — is creating a bowl-like area along Front where the new Metro bus and transportation center is also now in the midst of construction. 

Rising up dramatically on the river side of Front Street, south of Soquel Avenue, is River Row, a 175-unit rental apartment building, divided into three “towers,” punctuated by two plazas connecting downtown to the river levee. On either side of the massive River Row project — expected to be completed and open for pre-leasing a year from now — are two other big high-rise projects yet to break ground: yet another apartment building to the north, a new hotel to the south. Then, on the other side of Laurel Street is what’s known in city government as the Downtown Plan Expansion, which potentially could include a new permanent arena for the Santa Cruz Warriors and yet more high-rise housing.

Developers hope that the new square at the river end of Cathcart Street will become something like Abbott Square, attracting downtown activity from outdoor dining to live performances. Credit: Kevin Painchaud / Lookout Santa Cruz

There are plenty of potentially disorienting big construction projects happening in other parts of the city, including a gigantic new public library complex a couple of blocks over. But Front Street, south of Soquel Avenue, is the corridor that will likely represent Santa Cruz’s enormous changes most vividly. When the transformation is completed sometime in the next eight to 10 years, what was once an overlooked, more car-friendly side street parallel to the more glamorous Pacific Avenue will be a new — even strange and unsettling to many locals — thoroughfare subject to what city planners like to call “the canyon effect,” with the big new buildings creating a uniquely urban shade even in midday, a taste of San Francisco in Santa Cruz.

The drama of this new downtown construction can already be experienced. Driving into downtown from the other side of the river, across the Laurel Street bridge, or looking south on Soquel Avenue, the half-built edifice of the new River Row complex exposes a view that, for someone not already accustomed to it, can be breathtaking.

Welcome to River Row

The first of the big new projects on the river side of Front Street will be called River Row, which will include three towers making up 175 rental units in total, including 20 “affordable” set-aside units. Leasing is expected to begin by the end of the year, with the building completion in the first quarter of 2026. 

That means a year from now, River Row will represent the city’s first foray into a new engagement with the San Lorenzo River since the construction of the river levee almost 70 years ago. On a recent tour of the River Row property, I got a sense of what that engagement would look like in the early stages of what developers hope becomes a new town square. A staircase on Front Street at Cathcart will lead to an open public plaza, ideally surrounded by restaurants and/or cafes, outdoor tables, planters, lighting and public art. The plaza, projected to be larger in square footage than nearby Abbott Square, will lead to the Riverwalk, along which will be various amenities including tables, a grassy area parking for bicycles and even a food truck. The two neighboring projects along the levee have similar plans to build public-friendly spaces overlooking the river for the entire block between Soquel Avenue and Laurel Street.

_{Landscape drawings of the Cathcart Paseo entranceway to the San Lorenzo Riverwalk show the spaces that will be open to the public between Front Street and the river. Credit: Lincoln Property Company}

“I went to UCSC,” River Row’s property manager, James Marin, told me on site. “And in all that time, I don’t think I ever went to the river.” Marin’s experience is typical. The San Lorenzo has for decades been widely seen as separate from downtown, and development and architecture has reflected that sense of detachment. The mandate from the state’s Regional Housing Needs Allocation — which dictates the number of new housing units each individual jurisdiction should build — created the opportunity for the city to do what it has talked about doing for years: reengage the river with downtown.

In late February, I took a walk down Pacific Avenue with Bonnie Lipscomb, the city’s economic development director, and Lee Butler, the city’s director of planning. As we reached Cathcart Street on Pacific Avenue, we paused and looked toward the river and emerging River Row complex. 

“This viewpoint here is important,” said Butler, gesturing toward what will be called the “Cathcart Paseo,” “because it shows how we have intentionally designed this visual connection to the river.” Sure enough, the staircase leading to the new plaza and the Riverwalk just beyond it lined up neatly with the end of Cathcart Street. A block south of Cathcart is another, smaller access point to the river cutting through the River Row complex, to be called “Maple Paseo.” Both paseos lead through the building complex directly to the Riverwalk.