Salinas staff outline plans for Chinatown predevelopment: 88 affordable units, Republic Cafe restoration and museum

Grant Leonard, Salinas planning manager, told the Planning Commission on May 6 that the city has advanced predevelopment work for multiple properties on Soledad Street in Chinatown — including 34–40, 37–39 and 45 Soledad — with an objective of producing mixed‑use affordable housing, ground‑floor commercial space and a museum honoring local Asian cultural history.

The presentation summarized work funded in large part by a $1,500,000 predevelopment grant awarded in 2024 and said the city hired TEF Design to prepare entitlement and building‑permit packages. "We were successful in securing a $1,500,000 grant to complete predevelopment work for those sites," Leonard said. He described outreach and design steps meant to honor the neighborhood's historic character while creating viable commercial space and housing at different income levels.

Why it matters: the city said the project is intended to catalyze private investment in a part of Salinas long identified as disadvantaged. Staff described a program of roughly 88 affordable units across the sites, a mix of studios through three‑bedroom units, limited on‑site parking and roughly 6,000 square feet of first‑floor commercial space at one site and about 2,000 square feet at another. One mixed‑use building in the renderings showed about 55…