Major Town Center Hurdle Cleared!

The Santa Cruz City Council has agreed to sell the last 8.15 acres of the former Skypark Airport in Scotts Valley to a developer for $8.5 Million. The Sale is to Scotts Valley Town Green Land LLC, whose bid to create a mixed-use development on about 15 acres along Scotts Valley’s Mount Hermon Road one of the busiest streets in Santa Cruz County. This caps an effort more than 20 years in the making of Scotts Valley’s Town Center Project.

The developers and the City of Scotts Valley’s vision is to build a $180 million Town Center fronting on Mount Hermon Road. The sale of the property owned by the city of Santa Cruz, is crucial to bring the project to realization and was appraised at $8.3 million last year and will be sold “as is” meaning the buyer would be responsible for any cleanup.

Palisade Builders of Campbell with Chris Foley of Ground Matrix of San Francisco, working with Doug Ross of Palisade Builders in Campbell and Santa Cruz developer Owen Lawlor, formed the buyer, Scotts Valley Town Green Land LLC.

The 8.15 acres are between the U.S. Postal Service and where Scotts Valley developer Corbett Wright is to build both a Starbucks with a drive through and a brewpub restaurant called “The Hangar.” The city of Scotts Valley sold Wright the 1.5 acres for $520,000 after incurring expenses for soil remediation, building demolition and decommissioning a well.

The original 2008 Town Center plan covered 58 acres with 300 housing units, parking for 1,475 cars, a town green and an what is now agreed as an overly ambitions 310,000 square feet of retail given changing shopping habits in the 10 years since then.

In March, the Scotts Valley City Council chose Palisade Builders as the preferred developer for its current vision of 288 housing units, 32,000 square feet of restaurant, market hall and retail space, a town green and parking garages.

The council has now given the developer 120 days to produce a site plan showing demolition and construction, types of uses, proposed square footage, ingress and egress for people on foot and in cars, potential tenants and financial projections.

Town Center is becoming reality!