Redevelopment: Planned Connector of Balboa Park to Bay Beginning To Take Shape
San Diego is gearing up for public improvements that will add to the changing face of Downtown.
The city has been working on plans for its Park-to-Bay Link for about six years. The San Diego Unified Port District will soon begin to plot out a new park, which is included in the plans for a revamped South Embarcadero.
The Park-to-Bay Link, will provide a direct route from Balboa Park along what now is 12th Avenue. The cost of the public improvements, excluding the new section next to the Downtown ballpark, is estimated at $35 million.
Twelfth Avenue will be renamed Park Boulevard, as an extension of the existing boulevard. It will split off from 12th and head southwest toward the new Downtown ballpark on its way to San Diego Bay.
“It’s really a basic public improvement project,” said Gerard Selby, associate project manager for the Centre City Development Corp., the city’s redevelopment corporation for Downtown.
The redeveloped 12th Avenue will have new curbs, gutters and trees. Sidewalks will also be repaved and widened.
Trolley stations will be upgraded and 12th Avenue will become a two-way street all the way to the bay. Park Boulevard will end at the 1,000-room hotel planned for the Campbell Shipyard site next to the San Diego Convention Center; the Port District is still seeking a developer for the site.
Public improvements like the Park-to-Bay Link are important because of the redevelopment investments they initiate, Selby said. He pointed to new sidewalks in Little Italy. The Little Italy project prompted new residential and commercial development in that neighborhood.
Some development is already planned along the future Park Boulevard, including the city’s $140 million library planned between J and K streets.
According to CCDC vice president of marketing and communications Donna Alm, the Park-to-Bay Link will spur an estimated $250 million in redevelopment Downtown , excluding the ballpark.
“We’re going to have a whole new city in three years, one that San Diegans won’t recognize,” Selby said.
Residential development is planned at the Market Street trolley station on 12th Avenue, between Market and Island. The city is looking for a developer to build a mixed-use project with housing and a transit center. The CCDC is in the process of buying the properties located on the site.
Trammell Crow Residential had been selected by the City Council earlier this year to develop the block. The city and Trammell Crow have agreed to let the development agreement expire so the city can look for a developer that will require a smaller contribution from the CCDC, according to Derek Danziger, CCDC communications manager.
Two other developers plan to build residential projects at 12th and Market. San Diego-based Barone Galasso is planning a 280-unit residential project around the Palms Hotel, on the block bounded by Market, 12th, 13th and Island.
Western Pacific has plans for a mixed-use residential project with a 115-unit apartment building around the existing Union Bank on the south side of Market between 11th and 12th avenues.
The CCDC is working with San Diego-based Lankford & Associates Inc. on an agreement for a block at 12th Avenue and C Street where the City College transit station is located, Selby said.
Preliminary plans call for two triangular towers. According to Selby, the residential tower is still being designed, but may be 18 stories. The office tower will be five stories. The trolley will run diagonally across the block, between the buildings.
An agreement is being negotiated for the San Diego Housing Commission to take 68,000 of the 110,000 square feet of office space, according to Selby. City College may use some space for classrooms as well.
The Metropolitan Transit Development Board plans to connect the orange and blue trolley lines at 13th and Imperial avenues so the trains can move south. It will “meet the demands of the ballpark and the neighborhood,” said David Nielsen, president of San Diego-based MNA Consulting and coordinator for the Park-to-Bay Link project.
Trolley station improvements are also planned for the Gaslamp station at Fifth Avenue and Harbor Drive to accommodate increased traffic to the ballpark.
Several different federal, state and local funding sources are contributing to the Park-to-Bay Link. The cost of improvements from Balboa Park to the ballpark are expected to cost about $35 million. The new diagonal section of Park Boulevard is figured into the budget for the $452 million ballpark project.
Selby said about half of the funding for the Park-to-Bay Link will come from Gov. Gray Davis’ congestion relief program. Various federal transportation agencies have also contributed to the project. The CCDC will contribute tax increment financing totaling $2.1 million.
The CCDC anticipates improvements will get under way in March, Nielsen said. The work is expected to take about two years to complete. The path for the new section at the ballpark of Park Boulevard at the ballpark has been cleared and a drainage system has been installed, he said.
Construction on the $500,000 worth of improvements at the Gaslamp trolley station is expected to begin in the fall or early winter. The connection of the orange and blue trolley lines is expected to be done before the ballpark opens in 2004, and Nielsen said, construction may begin next summer.
A new five-acre park is planned at the bay end of the link. The park site is near the water’s edge, half of which sits on the Campbell Shipyard site.
According to Ralph Hicks, director of land use planning for the port, early discussions for the new park included ideas for a Ferris wheel or a similar type of attraction, but those ideas were never approved, Hicks said. The port is interested in “something that if you’re at the ballpark, you’ll want to come down to the waterfront,” he said.
Hicks said the port and other interests have suggested the new park should be a public gathering spot with the possibility for recreational and public art opportunities.
“We don’t see it as a stagnant park,” he said.
The port will probably sponsor public workshops to collect design ideas for the park, Hicks said. The San Diego Downtown Partnership recently sponsored a design workshop, in which local designers, members of the business community and representatives of local government agencies discussed ideas for the new park.
Scott Aishton, a principal at San Diego-based architecture firm Carrier Johnson and chairman of the Downtown Partnership’s Urban Design Committee, is compiling an executive summary for the port based on the ideas generated at the workshop.
The top concern was that there be some sort of vertical landmark to guide people to the park, Aishton said.
