(rshsdepot) San Jose, CA

["James Dent" <james.dent_@_itochu.com>]

Published Thursday, March 22, 2001, in the San Jose (CA) Mercury News

First look tonight at depot park plan
ENVISIONED AS LINKING BEACH, DOWNTOWN
BY DAVID L. BECK
Mercury News

The public gets its first look tonight at plans to turn a barren railway
corridor into an 8.5-acre park and museum site that could help tie together
downtown Santa Cruz and the beach.

The misshapen property includes an old railroad freight building, as well as
Lighthouse Liquors, which will be torn down. The city is still negotiating
for a final piece of land owned by Santa Cruz Feed & Grain at Center and
Washington streets.

The package has been put together over several years with help from
transportation officials and a 1998 public facilities ballot measure. The
park would include a soccer field, a transit center and the city's Museum of
Natural History. There would be play areas and parking for bikes and cars.

Other plans are already afoot to expand the park and link it in a more
formal way with the nearby Neary Lagoon park.

``I think it'll be a really unique link between the beach, the neighborhoods
and downtown,'' said Cynthia Mathews, a former city council member and a
member of the Depot Site Task Force, which has spent the last year helping
shape the project.

The task force included people representing environmentalists, bicycle
riders and the community, in addition to city council members.

Did things go smoothly? ``The different interests'' have ``a number of
points of view that are strongly held,'' said Andrew Schiffrin, who chaired
the task force. ``That was the council's intention, that they work
cooperatively. And I think that's happening more and more.''

The project began with a grant of $2 million from the Santa Cruz Regional
Transportation Commission to acquire four acres for what was then conceived
as a new railroad depot, with parking and space for other transportation
needs. Since then the commission has abandoned its hopes of reinstituting
passenger rail service, at least for now. The facility will be built so a
rail link could be added in the future, said Linda Wilshusen, executive
director of the transportation commission.

Of the two rail lines that pass through the park site, one is owned by Union
Pacific and connects Davenport with Pajaro Junction, usually carrying loads
-From the Lone Star cement plant in Davenport. The other is owned by Santa
Cruz, Big Trees and Pacific, an excursion line that runs tourist trains from
Felton to the boardwalk. The commission hopes to acquire the Union Pacific
line.

An additional $1 million came from Measure G funds earmarked for sports
facilities -- a phrase that was understood from the beginning to mean a
soccer field, said Carol Scurich, recreation superintendent in the Santa
Cruz Parks and Recreation Department.

The city put up the money to buy the Lighthouse Liquors site and the Feed &
Grain site. Feed & Grain owner Michael Williams has been guaranteed the
right to continue his horse-drawn carriage rides from somewhere in the new
park.

The Museum of Natural History has been squeezed into a former library in the
Seabright area since 1954. With the city providing the land, the museum will
raise an estimated $10 million to $12 million for a 35,000-square-foot
building in the new park, said Susan Bertken, the Museum Association's
representative on the task force.

``We've got lots of artifacts that are stored,'' she said. ``We've got
classes that are bursting out at the seams, and a very active events and
programs committee that is planning for the expansion -- for, you know, what
can we do that's bigger and better?''

The park will include space for nearly 250 cars. That's a significant
mitigating factor if the city goes ahead with its plan to strip Beach Street
of 91 parking spaces for a bikeway.

On the other hand, ``There'd be a whole lot more room for bikes'' in the
park ``if they'd have fewer parking spaces for cars,'' said task force
member Vicki Winters, who questioned the need for parking now that passenger
rail service is no longer part of the mix.

``If the intention is to get people to switch to bikes, you need to look at
it in the larger context for the whole city,'' she said. ``Maybe there's a
better solution.''

The former depot was home to different bars and restaurants -- among them
the Gandy Dancer and El Palomar -- until it burned to the ground in the
mid-1990s. The remaining building on the site, the blue-painted freight
building now used by a women's flower cooperative, will be moved nearer the
tracks.

The addition of the Feed & Grain property will probably mean closing part of
Washington Street. The city has already renamed the street that runs into
the wharf Pacific Avenue, in hopes that tourists will be able to follow
downtown's main street all the way to the beach.

Construction costs for the park -- not including the museum -- are estimated
at $5 million to $6 million.

``Moving the freight building is going to be expensive,'' said Schiffrin.
``Paths, landscaping -- it's just incredible how the costs add up.'' The
city hopes for some state money.

Scurich said the earliest work could begin is spring 2002.

``This year we're hoping to have a plan done,'' said Schiffrin. ``Then comes
the environmental review. Our goal is to get the plan completed over the
next several months. The task force is not supposed to have a long-term
life.''

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