Current Challenges to Our Waterfront

Cannery Row is a key waterfront area for Monterey, both for residents and tourists. For residents it is an important traffic and parking congestion generator. On the other hand there are jobs on the Row.

For tourists it is a destination. Many come looking for some contact with the Row's history or contact with the Monterey Bay Sanctuary.

But the City of Monterey has approved a number of projects that will forever change the Row: (1) Rohr Hotel which became Monterey Peninsula Hotel then the The Ocean's Edge Hotel and most recently The Oceans Edge Hotel, and (2) Ocean View Plaza complex of condos, retail and resturants. (3) An IMAX theater and business conds was approved for 246 Cannery Row site (without any parking) but the owners and leasors came to a parting of the way and that project has gone away for now.

One focus of the Save Our Waterfont Committee has been the Ocean View Plaza Project. The view below is the only really panoramic view of the bay left directly from Cannery Row and the Recreation Trail in the Cannery Row section of Monterey's waterfront. The Ocean View Plaza project proposes to fill this view. It will bring traffic, parking, and water problems without much promise of benefit to the community (more minimum wage jobs). This project has been approved by City Hall and is continuing through the "process" looking for water via approval of a desal plant and approval from the Coastal Commission.

The view below will be filled with three large buildings that make up the The Ocean's Edge Hotel . This hotel will remove views, increase traffic and parking problems, and suck up Monterey's last drop of drinking water. It is doubtful that it will add jobs that pay at a level that will allow the employees to live in Monterey. One good outcome from opposition to the project will be a public viewing area next to the edge of the bay.  Stay tuned.