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Blighted store to bloom into flower shop

Say goodbye to the seedy look of Lighthouse Liquors.

The store, which closed earlier this year, has long been a bit of Westside blight with its graffiti and weeds. Soon the building will house a boutique selling wreaths and beeswax candles. Outside there will be landscaping, a garden, a place to buy fresh vegetables and sip hot coffee.

It is not, however, another example of Santa Cruz gentrification. The improvements are being made to benefit the homeless community as part of the nonprofit Homeless Garden Project. The people who grow the vegetables and prepare the wreaths are homeless or formerly homeless.

The city bought the liquor-store property with the intention of making the land part of a planned Depot Site family park, occupying an old railway yard.

But the project is still in the planning stages. Meanwhile the building is being renovated and repainted, and will soon house the Women’s Organic Flower Enterprise’s first year-round store. This branch of the garden project was founded five years ago, and made its biggest splash in the winter of 2000 when its temporary Pacific Avenue storefront drew crowds.

The flower enterprise has been selling wares seasonally, on different spots along Pacific Avenue, always in donated store spaces. But this is the first time the enterprise will get year-round retail location, which will also serve as the garden project’s new offices. The flower enterprise is getting help from many volunteers — including some donated construction work — and a $12,000 contribution from the city to transform the building, said homeless garden project executive director Jane Petroff.

The move will allow the flower enterprise to increase production and start distributing catalogues of its goods. The building it now occupies, less than a block from the liquor store, will soon be used exclusively for manufacturing and storage.

The workers who are converting the building say they are improving its appearance but won’t alter the building’s structure.

City staffers have asked them not to make big changes to the building because a group, remembering the Cross Roads drive-in restaurant that was there in the 1950s, wants to preserve the structure.

The building is not on the city’s historic building survey "but we want to cover all our bases" said city principal planner Ken Thomas.

The city has plans to tear down the building in four or five years — unless a group pays to move it elsewhere — to make way for an expanded natural history museum. Last year, Len Klempnauer, son of Cross Roads founder Leonard Klempnauer Sr., spearheaded an effort to turn Lighthouse Liquors into a new drive-in restaurant or 1950s Santa Cruz museum.

The Homeless Garden Project has an annual budget of $390,000. The program, including a farm near Natural Bridges State Beach, gives homeless people horticultural and retail training and sells the products to the public. The nonprofit relies mostly on private donations but also gets county and city funding. Petroff said the city kicks in about $13,000 annually.

For more information call 426-3609.

Contact Dan White at dwhite@santa-cruz.com.

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