Music lovers scramble to save Santa Cruz's Catalyst Club

SANTA CRUZ - A small group of music fans and Santa Cruz City Council candidates have created a petition in hopes of saving the Catalyst Club in downtown Santa Cruz. The building at 1011 Pacific Ave. is the proposed site of a seven-story mixed-use building.

Kaitlyn McKee, who works as a stage hand and rigging crew at local venues including the UC Santa Cruz Quarry Amphitheater, has taken the club's future into her own hands. She submitted a petition to the city that would place a measure on the November ballot. The measure, if approved by voters, would limit any developers' ability to demolish culturally or historically significant music venues. McKee, along with a small group of volunteers, hope to protect the club from demolition by amassing nearly 4,000 signatures by Monday.

McKee, also known by her DJ alias Liberty, moved to Santa Cruz around two years ago. She told the Sentinel that for her, part of the city's draw, in addition to its robust surfing community, was its punk rock scene. McKee believes that the Catalyst is an instrumental part of the Santa Cruz music scene's culture and community.

"This venue was created by a man that cared about music and culture and Santa Cruz," McKee said. "The legacy just needs to carry on."

The nightclub is one of Santa Cruz's longest running venues. It was founded by Randall Kane and has existed in its current location since 1976. Over the past 50 years, the Catalyst has hosted established and up-and-coming musicians, including Chuck Berry, Nirvana, Green Day and the Beach Boys.

Now, the future of the venue is uncertain. The building was listed for sale by Kane's family in 2025 and is the proposed site of a seven-story mixed-use building. It is possible that the Catalyst could remain in business, even if the current site is demolished and rebuilt after the club's lease ends in 2028. But McKee and many other opponents of the building's demolition don't want to see such a drastic change downtown, claiming it would devastate the local music scene and the city's culture.

At a recent meeting with the project developer, hosted by the city of Santa Cruz, residents and small business owners said the project would devastate the culture of downtown Santa Cruz and hurt small business owners. The businesses that share a wall with the Catalyst, including the Tea House Spa, could face challenges if the building is demolished.

Hector Marin, a City Council candidate for District 4 and paraeducator at Harbor High School, has been a leader in opposing the housing project at the Catalyst site. Weeks after the proposed housing project was announced, Marin launched a petition calling for the city to designate the building as a historical preservation cultural landmark to prevent its demolition. The petition amassed nearly 11,000 signatures in about a month.

Now, Marin has drafted an ordinance designed to save the Catalyst. Zac Foster, cannabis consultant and farmer, helped with final touches to the ordinance. McKee, noting the fast-approaching deadline for ballot measures, submitted a petition to put the ordinance on the November ballot earlier this month. If McKee and other volunteers, including Santa Cruz mayoral candidate Chris Krohn, gather enough signatures, the ordinance will be presented to voters this fall.

Marin's proposed ordinance, known as the Downtown Cultural and Historic Preservation Act, would establish city regulations limiting demolition and development of historic performance venues in downtown Santa Cruz. Those regulations include impact fees for certain downtown development and demolition projects, and requirements that developers replace historic performance venues if they are demolished. The act also prohibits the demolition of certain venues unless specific conditions are met. The ordinance would kick off a historic designation review for downtown venues. During the review, all demolition and alteration permits would be suspended.

Marin and Foster hope that, through such an ordinance, the Catalyst could be designated as a historic performance venue, thus limiting developers' ability to make changes to the site. The new regulation would provide similar protections for other culturally or historically significant venues, Marin said.

"They reached for the wrong thing in the wrong town," Foster said. "Santa Cruz and California cares about its music."

In a summary of the proposed ordinance, Santa Cruz City Attorney Cassie Bronson noted that the measure may not be successful in its stated goal of saving the Catalyst. The measure could be challenged or rendered unenforceable, Bronson continued in the summary, as developers could seek waivers to skirt the rules. State law also prohibits subjective standards for development regulations and prevents local agencies from applying more restrictive standards after a housing development application is underway.

The small group has only a few days to collect thousands of signatures. After seeing success with his first petition, Marin is optimistic.

"This is a very unifying effort on which all Santa Cruzans agree," Marin said. "We want to ensure that we preserve the cultural integrity of our city and also protect the local businesses that will be impacted from such development."

Even if the petition fails now, Foster said, it could be brought back for future elections. In that case, the ordinance may not protect the Catalyst, but it would benefit local businesses and other significant venues.

McKee said that if the ordinance doesn't make this year's ballot, she wouldn't know which steps to take next for the Catalyst.

"I'm not sure there's another way to save it," McKee said.

McKee and other volunteers plan to attend farmers markets and other public events over the next few days, petitions in hand. There are copies of the petition in several local businesses, including The Starving Musician, Old School Shoes and Spokesman Bicycles, all in downtown Santa Cruz. More information on the petition, including the city attorney's ballot summary, can be found at santacruzca.gov/November2026.

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