City leaders and local businesses talk about the redevelopment and new events for the Capitola Mall
CAPITOLA, Calif. (KION-TV)- Merlone Geier is considering a redevelopment of the Capitola Mall. However, the plans have been on paused since 2019. According to the city of Capitola, "The project calls for demolition of the Sears building, the Takara restaurant pad, and 124,936 square feet of commercial space within the mall core.
Target, Macy’s, Kohl’s, and the smaller retail store branch between Chili's and Kohl's will remain.
This weekend, the Capitola mall is hosting Surf City Comic Con, a day filled with comics, anime, cosplay and more. As the mall gears up for this event, questions regarding the shopping center's future, resurface.
“Planning on making it like a vibrant life community and the original plan was to create a great new block system that’s walkable and that isn’t an enclosed mall," Katie Herlihy the community development director of city of Capitola said. "It was suppose to be an open air with housing on top and now that we are moving forward with our housing element recently, the planning commission and city council supportive of us putting a new height allowance up to 75 feet on the mall site for redevelopment."
Right now, there is no talk about demolishing the mall, which would impact the shops inside. In order to attract more people, general manager Brian Kirk wants to continue bringing new, local offerings into the mall and hosting events like Surf City Comic Con to remain relevant.
“Anytime the mall infests and hosts outside groups to run its really fun programs, we get to see more people showing up in the mall and seeing stuff we have an offer," the executive director of Santa Cruz museum of discovery Rhiannon Crain said.
The city of Capitola wants to redevelop the mall by allowing taller buildings. The developer Merlone Geier and partners submitted a plan that included 645 housing units on top of the mall, but the city mandated it to build 419 affordable units.
Kirk told KION news that based on the current economic environment, their redevelopment plans continue to be on hold, and there are no new updates at this time.
