SANTA CRUZ — The developer for a contested major downtown housing and retail project is preparing to apply for a city building permit by the end of September, with construction expected to stretch from fall 2021 to 2023.
The as-of-yet unnamed development, set to straddle Pacific Avenue and Front Street at Laurel Street, will feature a seven-story mixed-use project with more than 200 apartments and 11,000 square feet of retail space. West Coast apartment developer-owner Anton DevCo will oversee the effort, the company’s first entry into the Santa Cruz housing market. The building will consist of 48 studios, 98 one-bedrooms and 59 two-bedroom apartments; two levels of structured parking, ground-floor retail with two-story ceiling heights and associated outdoor dining patios, according to the developer.
“We’re looking forward to bringing this exciting project to fruition and building something the community can be proud of,” Anton’s director of investments Marco Scola was quoted in a company release. “Downtown Santa Cruz has such a unique energy and we’re looking forward to being a part of it and hopefully adding to it.”
Apartment residents will have access to amenities including a rooftop deck, spa, state-of-the-art fitness center, fire pits and a rooftop deck featuring fireside seating, dining areas and barbecue grills.
The project came to fruition under extensive public involvement through two iterations of the Santa Cruz City Council, the first after a 2017 city vote to loosen building height limits in the city’s downtown zoning plan. A point of contention for some observers and policymakers, the Front-Pacific project will provide only market-rate or self-described “luxury” housing, without inclusion of lower-cost affordable units. Property owners reached an agreement with the city, approved by the Santa Cruz City Council in December 2018, to donate off-site property for use in a pending city-overseen low-income housing project.
After the Anton development’s initial approval, a group of citizens filed a civil lawsuit, stretching through most of 2019, which challenged the project’s approval and other affordable housing-related policies. A settlement agreement in late 2019 between the citizens and the city freed up the development to move forward, while separately requiring the city to return to earlier mandates that future housing developments set aside 20% of their units at pre-established affordability rates.
Because the city census tract in which the project is to be built is listed as one of Santa Cruz’s IRS-designated “Qualified Opportunity Zones” — meaning it is an economically distressed area — investors are eligible for preferential tax treatment. The census tract in question is a less-than-a-square-mile neighborhood bordered by Lincoln, Mission and Bay streets, the San Lorenzo River and Monterey Bay.
