The dream has always been for the Tannery Arts Center to become a hub of artistic and economic activity. Salz Tannery, constructed in the 1800s at the confluence of Pogonip Creek and the San Lorenzo River, closed in 2001 and shortly thereafter became the cause celebre for a clutch of city officials and planners who envisioned a thriving community of artist residences, studios, galleries and performance spaces. George Newell, the organization’s project director, says he sees it developing into a state-of-the-art production and performance site for musicians, videographers, dancers, painters, sculptors and actors. He says it could even become a tourist draw.
“We want visitors to take a walk on the Boardwalk and then go see a play at the Tannery Arts Center,” he says.
The first of three city-sponsored building phases, the residential, was completed in 2008, and today 300 people—most of them artists—live at the Tannery in 100 low-cost lofts. Now the Tannery Arts Center is in the second phase, which aims to add 25 private working spaces and a digital media center. Bonnie Lipscomb, the city’s director of redevelopment, says phase two could be completed by the end of this summer, clearing the way for phase three: construction of a theater and a restaurant.
But the ambitious project could come to a halt if Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget-balancing plan succeeds. Brown aims to balance California’s budget by redirecting millions of dollars from the state’s 400 redevelopment agencies, the city- and county-level offices that support local economic development, back to state coffers. Gov. Brown’s legislation is not yet authored, but city officials have said his plan is to abolish the state’s redevelopment agencies by July 1. And since the Tannery depends heavily on redevelopment funds—the city’s RDA office has leveraged $4.7 million in federal and $1.9 million in state grants for the second phase alone—that spells trouble.
Santa Cruz Mayor Ryan Coonerty expects heavy economic damage across the county if Brown gets his way. Three hundred construction jobs at the Tannery Arts Center will almost certainly be lost, as will several hundred more at the new Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary Exploration Center, also being built with redevelopment funding. At the agency itself, 11 more jobs are likely to go. In the longer term, terminated job training programs and the cancellation of community infrastructure development could push indirect job cuts into the thousands countywide, according to Coonerty.
Though Brown’s legislation would only liquidate funding for redevelopment agencies, it could have an outsized impact. Many federal and state lenders only provide grants to cities that put up local money to match them; those state and federal entities would withdraw their assistance, Coonerty explains. Under such strained circumstances, renovation and development at the Tannery and the National Marine Sanctuary site would almost certainly end, says Lipscomb.
The mayor, with unanimous support from his fellow City Council members, opposes the governor’s plan. Mayors from around the state do, too, says Coonerty, who met with several of them two weeks ago to discuss strategies for fighting Brown’s intended budget cuts.
“The state is now trying to take away money that voters decided to use in our community development efforts,” Coonerty says, referring to propositions 22 and 1A, which voters passed in 2010 and 2009, respectively, to stop state-level plundering of city and county funds. Coonerty says Brown’s plans to raid local coffers could be illegal—a point he said he will argue in state court if he has to.
But first, Coonerty says, he plans to band with other community leaders and fight Brown’s scheme in the legislative arena. “We’re going to make sure our elected officials in Sacramento know the impacts that this will have on our communities,” he says.
Should that fail to save the local redevelopment agency, Coonerty assures, he’ll take the matter to court.
