"Otherwise, this will be just another art project collecting dust on the shelf, along with the two other visioning plans we have from 2009 and 2011." Councilmember Melinda Orbach said that before she moved to adopt the 41st Avenue, Clares Street and Capitola Road Corridor Plan, according to the Santa Cruz Sentinel. The motion passed unanimously at the council's Thursday, Oct. 8 meeting.
Orbach's warning gets at how the document works. Most of the corridor plan doesn't build anything. It lays out what 41st Avenue, Clares Street and Capitola Road should become, and much of it only takes effect when a property owner decides to redevelop. On the road you drive this winter, the plan adds up to a short list of lane decisions and one slab of concrete. Everything else depends on who owns the parcels and when they move.
Two Turn Lanes and a Concrete Pad
The decisions with a street address are about left turns. The first draft removed the southbound turn lane at 1440 41st Ave. After the city's survey, staff kept it, because Community and Economic Development Director Katie Herlihy said eliminating it would make several businesses much harder to reach. The adopted plan does remove the northbound left-turn lane at 2121 41st Ave., which police described as unsafe and prone to accidents. That address also belongs to Blue Lava Café, which Good Times profiled in January as a new opening.
The plan's other physical trace came before the vote. In the week before the 41st Avenue overnight repaving was scheduled to start, concrete crews replaced a curb ramp at 41st and Auto Plaza Drive. They also poured the base for a future gateway sign outside Pizza My Heart on Gross Road. The paving itself was set for 9 p.m. to 6 a.m., July 6 through 10 and July 13 through 17. In its October 2026 meeting packet, the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission described Capitola's 41st Avenue multimodal project as "almost complete." No installation date has been announced for whatever goes on that base. The draft plan treats gateway signage as a placemaking idea the city can carry out in pieces over time.
Most of the Plan Waits for Someone to Build
The rest of the plan sounds more dramatic. As the Sentinel's preview of the vote laid it out, the ideas include gateway monuments at the north and south ends of 41st Avenue and public art in the medians. The plan calls for wave-shaped paving on sidewalks and two design themes, mountains and bluffs inland and shoreline elements closer to the ocean, set apart by color, plants, paving and signs. It also adds shade trees, high-visibility crosswalks, narrower traffic lanes and new bike routes on side streets, because 41st Avenue between Highway 1 and Clares Street carries so much car traffic. The draft calls these changes conceptual and says they can be phased in.
Several of the biggest pedestrian changes depend on redevelopment. The city's new zoning for the Capitola Mall block requires redevelopment projects to include 20-foot pedestrian areas along perimeter streets, and the corridor plan uses the same standard. For Clares Street, staff added a recommendation to consider zoning amendments that would require future redevelopment to give up road frontage for pedestrian and bike improvements.
| Element | Status as of late October 2026 | What it depends on |
|---|---|---|
| Southbound turn lane, 1440 41st Ave | Kept in adopted plan | Already in place |
| Northbound left-turn lane, 2121 41st Ave | Removal adopted in plan | City implementation |
| Gateway sign base, Gross Road | Concrete base poured ahead of July repaving | A future sign or monument |
| Two midblock crossings on Clares Street | Proposed in adopted plan | City implementation |
| 20-foot pedestrian areas on mall perimeter | Required by mall zoning | A redevelopment project |
| Clares Street lane-reduction study | Returned to main plan | Further study, Active Transportation Plan |
| Monuments, median art, wave paving | Conceptual | Incremental funding and projects |
Read down the right-hand column and the pattern shows. The lines that say "city implementation" are the short list. Most of the rest are waiting on someone else.
Who Owns the Corridor Sets Its Pace
The mall block is where that waiting is most visible. The City Council adopted the Capitola Mall zoning amendments on March 26, 2026. The Sentinel reported that the new rules allow three kinds of projects:
- Residential only, up to 48 units per acre with 20% affordable.
- Housing plus a 120-room hotel, 3,600 square feet of meeting space and at least 35,000 square feet of commercial space.
- Housing with no hotel and at least 200,000 square feet of commercial space.
Merlone Geier Partners owns 32 of the mall's 46 acres. The City of Capitola's Capitola Mall FAQ says the company has no active redevelopment application and took part in the zoning update without pursuing a specific project. In March, the company's managing director told Lookout Santa Cruz there was no timeline or target date for an application. That article also recalls that Merlone Geier's 2019 concept called for 637 homes and 339,000 square feet of commercial space, and the plan was dropped during the pandemic. The city's own list of planning efforts shows how long this has been building. It runs from a 2010 zoning change through the 2011 41st Avenue/Capitola Mall Re-Visioning Plan and that withdrawn 2019 application, up to the 2024 Housing Element.
Clares Street is spread across even more owners. As Orbach pointed out during the October meeting, the Macy's, Olive Garden and Ross parcels belong to a handful of property owners other than Merlone Geier. Across the street, Brown Ranch Marketplace is not expected to redevelop soon. A rule that adds sidewalks and bike space only when a parcel redevelops could leave Clares improving one frontage at a time, on no set schedule.
Why Clares Street Became the Fight
That ownership picture explains why the council's only real debate was over Clares Street. The original plan included a study of narrowing lanes there to add bike lanes and slow traffic. After the survey, staff moved that study to an appendix. Lookout reported the survey breakdown Herlihy gave. Six of nine business owners opposed the lane reduction, along with 33 of 57 employees, 133 of 258 residents and 79 of 191 visitors.
Orbach argued that a city waiting on redevelopment could wait a long time, and that cyclists need a way to reach Clares Street businesses because 41st Avenue isn't slated for major bike infrastructure. Lookout reported that she tied it to city revenue, noting the commercial corridor is responsible for 82% of Capitola's sales tax revenue, and quoted her: "we better start thinking about how we're going to get people here safely to do their shopping."
Her motion put the lane-reduction study back into the main plan and asked staff to look for grants for near-term improvements. Councilmember Gerry Jensen's amendment holds off on grant applications until the city's Active Transportation Plan sets the overall vision. That plan is expected in early 2028. So the most debated idea in the plan is still in it, and it now has a timeline that runs through a separate plan at least a year out.
What's on the Corridor This Season
The corridor still works the way it did before the vote, and a few of its newer tenants are easy to miss. Nashville Fire Chicken moved from Scotts Valley into the Capitola Mall food court in June, and Good Times covered it in August at 1855 41st Ave. On the other side of the block, Toriman Japanese Market at 3555 Clares St. sells Japanese groceries and ready-to-eat food, according to a Good Times profile from Aug. 18. Blue Lava Café sits at 2121 41st Ave., the address where the plan drops the northbound left turn.
For holiday errands, the Capitola Mall's posted hours list the mall as closed on Thanksgiving, Thursday, Nov. 26, and open 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Black Friday, Nov. 27. Special hours are posted for Saturday, Dec. 12, and for the weeks of Dec. 14 and Dec. 21. Christmas Eve runs 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Christmas Day is closed, and New Year's Eve runs 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. As of late October, the mall's events page hadn't listed a Santa visit, tree lighting or holiday market for 2026, so check it again closer to December.
If you own property on or near the 41st Avenue corridor, the mall zoning and corridor plan affect what a future buyer, tenant or developer will picture for your block, even before anything is built. Breakwater Properties follows these land-use changes closely and can help you understand how they bear on your property's value. This post is general information, not legal or financial advice, so confirm what the zoning means for your parcel with the City of Capitola or a qualified professional. When you want a current number, Request a Home Valuation.
