For Mark Primack, the key to the future is not conforming. That goes for people, ideas and the buildings they live and work in.
“A planning director once observed that if you asked people in Santa Cruz to identify the places, the buildings or businesses that most expressed the unique character and spirit of this town,” says the local architect and former Santa Cruz councilmember, “guaranteed every one of those would be ‘existing non-conforming,’ meaning they violate current rules and standards.”
When Redtree Properties asked the designer of NextSpace and Lulu’s at the Octagon to sketch what he envisioned on an empty industrial lot on Santa Cruz’s Westside, Primack aimed straight at the city’s creative potential and designed the Delaware Addition, a neighborhood that grows around a concept close to extinction: living and working in the same space.
“The inspiration came from my experience of great cities that accommodate the anarchic vitality of its citizens, compared to which Santa Cruz, California looks a lot like Stalingrad,” says Primack, citing pre-Katrina New Orleans and Istanbul as influences.
The 20-acre plot of land where the Lipton Tea factory once stood will be the first entire neighborhood in Santa Cruz to be zoned as both industrial and residential, lifting laws that would deem the garage-tinkering beginnings of both Apple and Microsoft illegal and allowing a flexible space for entrepreneurs and small businesses to take root and grow within the building shells. Among the first 25 neighborhoods in the world to be LEED certified by the US Green Building Council, the Delaware Addition also serves as an international model for a sustainable and resilient community.
The first two buildings, slated to break ground after the first of the year, will be the incubator for the entire project, which will likely be completed within 10-15 years and is projected to cost around $100 million. Its mix of workshops, parks, shops and cafes will house 350 people in 248 live/work units. It’s expected to provide 500 jobs.
So who, exactly, will live and work there?
“Here’s what I’ve seen on Swift Street: people who restore old cars, graphic designers, artists, sculptors, inventors, software designers, accountants, architects, landscape architects, a dance studio, import businesses, a T-shirt printing business,” says Primack. “Who is Santa Cruz? Who lives in Santa Cruz?”
The Delaware Addition’s eco-friendly components include solar panels along the western-facing rooftops, skylights and natural ventilation to cut down on electricity and air conditioning. Store and shop fronts will face tree-lined streets with parallel parking similar to that on Pacific Avenue, and a lack of parking lots will cut down on 25 percent of paving. Options for rooftop gardens, bike storage and access to bike paths, as well as bus and ride share stations, are also in the plans.
It’s a plan that speaks to the spirit of change, innovation and willingness to live in a community that Primack says he first encountered when he moved to Santa Cruz in the ’70s.
“There was a sense of anticipation, which somehow has gotten supplanted by a sense of dread,” says Primack. “But when you look around a dynamic, living city, you’re excited by the fact that it’s not over yet. There’s still room for your contribution.”
MARK PRIMACK discusses The Delaware Addition on Thursday, Sept. 15 at 6pm at the Museum of Art & History, 705 Front St., Santa Cruz. Free.
