As Cannery Row Marketplace Faces Foreclosure, Neighbors See Possibility for a Park

When Cal Poly students went scrambling along the fenced-off rocks of a vacant Cannery Row spot earlier this summer, the property owner, Palo Alto-based Cannery Row Marketplace LLC, paid little mind. It was just an academic exercise, not a trespassing foul.

It was week one of a summer studio class for landscape architecture students. Their assignment: Create a park where there are now old cement fish-holding tanks and crumbling infrastructure behind a chain-link fence.

It’s also where the city of Monterey in 2004 approved a major development renamed Ocean View Plaza, featuring 51 condos, 377 parking spaces, more than 100,000 square feet of retail space and a community park, all served by an on-site desal plant.

But these students were unconstrained by matters like parking, water credits or financing. They presented Aug. 16 at the Hilltop Recreation Center, showing off creative ideas that included ocean-facing amphitheaters, a visitor center for diving gear rentals, a giant bronze whale sculpture lined with LED lights to serve as a safe nighttime play structure for kids, and an underwater real-life aquarium with below-ground windows to the ocean and sea life illuminated by spotlight.

With the developer facing foreclosure – an auction originally scheduled for July has been rescheduled by Medallion Silver LLC for Sept. 17 at noon on the steps of the Castroville Public Library – the ambitious park concepts actually stand a chance.

Professor Dave Watson made this parcel the summer assignment after Monterey resident Bob Evans – who’s taken up the mantle of the Save Our Waterfront Committee, which his late wife, Barbara Bass Evans, launched to battle the development – reached out.

“I thought, ‘Oh my God, this is our opportunity,’ ” Bob Evans says of the foreclosure proceedings. “This was my effort to get some conceptual drawings, which we need if we’re going to raise money.”

And if there were money, there would be potential for a park.

“It is a parcel we’ve looked at, but nothing has ever ripened for discussion and direction,” says Kathleen Lee, Monterey Peninsula Regional Park District board president. But foreclosure, she adds, could change that.

At its Sept. 9 meeting, working with new general manager Rafael Payan, the board will discuss the vision for future acquisitions and balancing urban recreational access with conservation on larger parcels in undeveloped areas.

“It’s going to be important to have public input on what properties are important for acquisition,” Lee says. “If there was a strong measure of support for the parcel, that would certainly be something for the board to weigh.”

Monterey City Manager Fred Meurer attended some of the Cal Poly student presentations but thinks the financing would remain a challenge. “It will be very, very difficult to do it,” he says. “It will require creating a new revenue source.”

There’s also the question of whether the developers will hang on to the property despite a $7.7 million debt to Medallion, plus another $1.7 million owed to First American Title Insurance Co. Since the July sale was rescheduled for September, they appear to have paid off about $1 million.