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East Cliff Shopping Center Buildings to be Demolished
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East Cliff Shopping Center Building to be Demolished
The Aging Former Home of Polivios Restaurant Will Be the First to Go
By Chandler Harris
For residents of the small Santa Cruz community of Live Oak, the East Cliff Shopping Village has been as much an eyesore as a shopping center. Previous plans for revitalizing the center languished, but new plans are underway to begin revitalizing the shopping area.
A plan will soon be submitted to the County by the owner of the property, Barry Swenson Builders, for a building permit to begin the first phase of construction. The first phase could begin as soon as early fall and will include tearing down the abandoned building that housed Polivios restaurant many years ago. As part of the proposal, a new and bigger structure will take its place.
The building has extensive earthquake damage and is generally considered a mess by anyone brave enough to peer through the windows.
“I think it is good that they tear it down even if they are not ready to build a new one,” said First District County Supervisor Jan Beautz. “The building is kind of dangerous and it would be good to demolish it.”
The plan in place, which still needs approval from the County, is to create a two-story building that will contain a restaurant on the lower floor with a patio facing east and four to five residential units above, said Mike Perkins, the project manager in charge of the operation.
It’s a plan that Supervisor Beautz believes she could support.
Looking for a Good Cook…
Barry Swenson Builders, who has owned the site for six years, is putting the word out to experienced local and regional restaurateurs that a new restaurant location is coming to town, Perkins said. In the past, many people have expressed interest in opening a restaurant at the site, he explained, but they were turned down because plans were not decided upon at the time.
“We look forward to it being a positive impact on the neighborhood,” Perkins said. “We realize it is a project that has languished for several years.”
The dilapidated shopping area currently houses Mad Jack’s Coffee, a tattoo parlor, a martial arts studio, a liquor store, a Mexican bakery, a hair salon and a sparsely frequented supermarket. There are many vacancies and strolling pedestrians are difficult to come by at the shopping center, which was built sometime in the late ‘50s or early ‘60s.
“It’s horrible,” said Bill Simpkins, who lives nearby and owns System Studies, directly across from East Cliff Shopping Village. “It’s just run down and has a lot of problems.”
Simpkins, whose wife helped raise $600,000 for Live Oak’s Simpkins Swim Center, has attended neighborhood meetings to discuss reconstruction of the center. Some ideas Simpkins and other Live Oak residents expressed for the shopping center were a new pharmacy, a better supermarket, a post office and a community center.
“My feeling is that the project is going to define Live Oak,” Simpkins said. “So it’s absolutely critical that it’s done right. It could be such a jewel for the Live Oak area.”
Bigger Isn’t Always Better
Simpkins and other Live Oak residents were opposed to the idea of creating any three-story structures at the plaza, wanting to maintain a moderate profile consistent with Live Oak.
The only set plans so far for the plaza are the teardown and reconstruction of the building that will probably contain a restaurant, according to Perkins.
The other phases of reconstruction have not yet been decided, he added. Barry Swenson Builders is still throwing around some ideas. One concern of residents is whether the Live Oak Farmers Market, which is held weekly in the parking lot every year from May until October, will have to move at some point. They also worry that tenants currently leasing space will be given the boot.
Yet Simpkins is confident that Barry Swenson Builders will eventually reform the decrepit shopping center.
“Of any company that is doing this project, I’m glad the Swensons are doing it,” Simpkins said.
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