Old bank building demolished to make way for more housing in Watsonville

The old Sumitomo Bank building at 558 Main St. in Watsonville was torn down Friday morning to make room for a new housing development.

The new housing complex will include 72 units of single-bedroom and studio apartments.

Some residents, like Daniel Hernandez, are raising concerns of parking and traffic in the downtown area. He says it’s already an issue and this could make it worse.

“My main concern is the traffic. We’ve been having a lot of accidents with pedestrians lately, so that’s not good,” said Hernandez.

The Chamber of Commerce CEO, Shaz Roth, says the benefits and need for housing outweigh the negative impacts. “It’ll be five stories. They’re going to have a terrace area, they’ll have fire pits, they’ll be grilling areas where they can have barbecues and get to know each other.”

Shaz added, “Watsonville is growing, and there’s going to be new businesses investing in Watsonville, so there needs to be a place for people to stay.”

The developer of the complex, William Hansen, has already worked on several other properties in Watsonville.

Hansen said they hope to fill the gaps in the community. “We continue to change the landscape of the downtown and just bring it to where it was in the past. It went down a little bit, and now there’s rejuvenation, and we always like to hear from the community. Where the shortages are, we like to provide them.”

Construction is expected to start in spring of 2020 and be complete sometime in 2021.