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  #14461  
Old Posted Nov 4, 2019, 4:15 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Boatguy619 View Post
Have you ever visited Santa Monica 3rd street Promenade? It revitalized that area. I dont see bars and restaurants being replaced with shops. If anything they could expand their outdoor areas to the street similar to Santa Monica. And a few kiosks don't seem like an issue. Homeless/ panhandlers on the promonade can be removed.
This might be a different story if 5th Ave needed “revitalization” but does not. Also, 3rd Street is full of homeless.

I just don’t see a need to further destroy what’s left of the street grid in favor of creating a Disney-esque mall atmosphere when there is a really great city dynamic already at play. To that end, I’ve heard people (usually from LA) already call Gaslamp Disney-like. I completely disagree but see turning 5th Ave into a pedestrian mall as severely undercutting the authenticity of the street and surrounding area.

Hope this at least makes some sense even if others disagree.
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  #14462  
Old Posted Nov 4, 2019, 11:09 AM
Will O' Wisp Will O' Wisp is offline
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Originally Posted by spoonman View Post
This might be a different story if 5th Ave needed “revitalization” but does not. Also, 3rd Street is full of homeless.

I just don’t see a need to further destroy what’s left of the street grid in favor of creating a Disney-esque mall atmosphere when there is a really great city dynamic already at play. To that end, I’ve heard people (usually from LA) already call Gaslamp Disney-like. I completely disagree but see turning 5th Ave into a pedestrian mall as severely undercutting the authenticity of the street and surrounding area.

Hope this at least makes some sense even if others disagree.
I do see some of the points you're making, but I'll offer a rebuttal.

There is no authenticity to be preserved in the Gaslamp. Back in the 1970s the area was known as Stingaree, and it was nothing but warehouses, navy surplus stores, tattoo parlors, and porno shops (which were mostly fronts for brothels). It was such a scuzzy, dirty, unpleasant place the navy repeatedly banned sailors from going anywhere near, not that it tended to stop anyone. In the early 80s the Gaslamp Quarter Association was founded and over the next 20 years they carefully crafted Gaslamp into the Disneyland with drinks you see today. They kicked out all the porno shops and surplus stores, renovated all the warehouses into bars, and transformed 5th Ave into a sanitized parody of a sailor's drinking holiday. There's a certain irony to it, there are more bars on 5th now than back when its primary clientele actually was navy personnel on shore leave.

So the question here isn't if we should preserve some sort of "authentic Gaslamp Quarter experience" or somesuch, because that doesn't and never really has existed, but rather if we want to keep our 1980s/90s style entertainment district or update it to something more contemporary. I'll posit that a pedestrian promenade offers a lot of benefits over the current design. Bikes, scooters, and people stumbling out onto the street already make traffic on 5th a nightmare, and most people living downtown already avoid driving up and down that street without reason. There are a good deal of safety benefits to keeping cars away from people who are.... lets call it experiencing a temporary bout of impaired judgement. And all those parks and green spaces would provide more incentive for people to visit Gaslamp during the daytime, which they don't really do atm. All and all it provides a better experience to the area's customers, which is probably why the Gaslamp Quarter Association is looking to do it.

Because ultimately, this is a competition. If Gaslamp doesn't keep up to snuff tourists are going skip it and start visiting 3rd St Santa Monica instead, or Little Toyko in LA, or the Las Vegas strip for that matter (all of which have been renovated to some extent or another for a better pedestrian experience). And considering ~30% of our economy is based on tourism, we can hardly afford to watch one of our best destinations wither on the vine as everyone else improves.
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  #14463  
Old Posted Nov 4, 2019, 4:31 PM
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^^ Agreed.

We need to completely redesign our streets away from being autocentric. Better balancing pedestrian, bicycle, transit and cars will help us create safer, healthier streets for everyone. This is really as much a quality of life and climate solution as it is a business decision. I'm excited it's moving forward.

Meanwhile MTS is rolling out its electric bus pilot program today, and the first segments of it's bus (and bike) only lanes on El Cajon Blvd have opened. We are finally taking back our streets, and beginning to decarbonize our transit fleet!
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  #14464  
Old Posted Nov 4, 2019, 9:07 PM
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I’d prefer to see Gaslamp (and nearby areas) continue to evolve without seeing someone (in this case the Gaslamp Association) try to mold the area into something that may or may not succeed. I don’t want to see downtown streets turned into a mall. There are plenty of opportunities to create malls. We don’t need to sacrifice one of the highest energy areas in town for this purpose.
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  #14465  
Old Posted Nov 5, 2019, 11:44 AM
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Living in Europe at the moment and pretty much every city I've visited here has had a pedestrian promenade in the city center. I think downtown can at least have a segment of a single street transformed into something similar.
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  #14466  
Old Posted Nov 5, 2019, 9:26 PM
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Originally Posted by spoonman View Post
Totally disagree. This would completely kill the vibe of the area and slowly turn 5th avenue into a mall full of kiosks. Look what happened to Fremont Street in Vegas. There are now some efforts to turn it back into a street. Times Square was also wrecked this way. If anyone thinks that a 5th Avenue Mall/Promenade won't be the new home for the homeless, think again.
Huh??? This is a massive success by any objective measure.
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  #14467  
Old Posted Nov 7, 2019, 3:20 AM
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Gaslamp quarter

I think like with most proposals the devil is in the details. This can either be a really good thing or a really bad thing, depending on how they go about it. It’s not something that should be done half-assed. If their plan is just to put up some barriers and call it a day then it’s not worth the disruption to traffic. If they actually do something that adds trees/greenery and a quality outdoor environment to accompany the businesses then it will be good. I read that a big issue is how deliveries would be handled. They talked about only closing it to traffic at certain times. That would be half-assed in my opinion. It needs to be something more substantial, they will need to figure out the delivery problem
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  #14468  
Old Posted Nov 7, 2019, 6:10 AM
Will O' Wisp Will O' Wisp is offline
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Looks like the Gaslamp Quarter Association has put up a website with a video of some renderings.


Video Link
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  #14469  
Old Posted Nov 10, 2019, 11:26 PM
Will O' Wisp Will O' Wisp is offline
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These two make an interesting pair of reads:

Quote:
San Diego MTS sees recent spike in trolley, bus ridership

Officials hopeful they can reverse slump in annual transit trips
By Joshua Emerson Smith
Nov. 6, 2019
2:37 PM

Transit officials touted on Wednesday an increase of nearly a million trips on buses and trolleys in recent months — continuing a year-over-year increase in ridership that started in the spring.

The San Diego Metropolitan Transit System released data showing that between July and September ridership increased by about 4 percent over the same period last year, going from 21.3 million trips to 22.2 million trips.

The trolley system experienced the largest gains in recent months, with a 6.4 percent increase. The bus system — which serves about 10 million more riders annually than its fixed-rail counterpart — saw a bump of 2.8 percent.

“I’ve been here about 16 years now, and I see increasingly more people caring about transit and supporting transit than ever before,” said MTS CEO Paul Jablonski. “I’m very encouraged by what we’re seeing.”

If recent trends holds, MTS could see its highest annual ridership in several years, pulling in more than 88 million rides.

However, even that wouldn’t be enough to reverse a recent slump that started after 2015, with ridership falling from 96.7 million to less than 86 million since 2018.

MTS is now in the midst of its Elevate SD 2020 campaign, which is aimed at securing support for a half-cent sales tax increase on the November 2020 ballot. As part of that, the agency has launched a new online survey, Vision Builder, to better understand what types of projects voters would like to see tied to the levy.

Early results from MTS’s interactive tool suggest the most popular uses of the tax money include increasing transit service hours and connecting the trolley system to the San Diego International Airport.

If two-thirds of voters approve the transit measure, the new revenue would likely double the agency’s $300 million budget.
Quote:
MTS polling: San Diegans want more trolley lines — until they see the price tag

San Diego Metropolitan Transit System continues voter outreach ahead of tax hike slated for 2020 ballot
By Joshua Emerson Smith
Nov. 6, 2019
6 AM

Initial results from an online survey launched by the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System in October are calling into question the extent to which San Diegans want the agency to invest in costly new rail lines.

Preliminary results from MTS’s new interactive tool, Vision Builder, suggest that the most popular way for the agency to spend new tax revenue would be to extend service hours on existing transit routes — rather than dramatically expand its light-rail trolley system, as previous surveys have found.

The agency’s recently released data includes 2,258 respondents who chose between transit projects of varying costs using a limited pot of virtual money. Users are given 1,000 coins to spend as a way of voting for their preferred upgrades. The survey is still open to participants.

According to the polling, running buses and trolleys earlier into the morning and later at night was nearly twice as popular as building a long-envisioned Purple Line Trolley between the U.S.-Mexico border and Kearny Mesa and was selected more than three times as often as adding an express route to the Blue Line Trolley between the border and downtown San Diego.

At the same time, October’s online survey results seem to contradict the findings of a previous outreach campaign kicked off by MTS this spring. Both efforts are part of the agency’s Elevate SD 2020 campaign, which is largely aimed at gauging what types of projects residents would like see tied to a tax increase likely to go before voters on the November 2020 ballot.

As part of that effort, transit officials attended 28 events from May through September, surveying more than 2,200 people at everything from the Pride Parade to the Asian Cultural Festival to the Navy Bay Bridge Run to several Chamber of Commerce mixers and neighborhood street fares.

The feedback overwhelmingly suggested that residents were hungry for new trolley lines — garnering more than double the support of the next most popular project type, new Rapid Bus routes.

MTS could see its $300 million annual budget double if two thirds of voters approve the agency’s proposed half-cent sales tax increase. However, building a new trolley line could eat up as much as 40 percent of that new revenue for decades to come.

The issue has become somewhat politically charged as the region’s largest transportation and planning agency, the San Diego Association of Governments, has simultaneously proposed building a high-speed rail network. SANDAG Executive Director Hasan Ikhrata has publicly criticized the trolley system as too slow.

SANDAG officials also plan to ask voters to approve a separate tax increase to fund what could end up being a competing vision for public transit in the region. The measure could be before voters as early as 2022.

Some transportation advocates have suggested that while MTS should devote significant resources to beefing up its existing system, the agency should also pursue a limited expansion of the trolley network.

While the recent MTS polling suggests that residents are cautious about investing billions in new rail lines, respondents strongly supported connecting an existing trolley line to the San Diego International Airport. The idea was the second most selected project in the Vision Builder results, just slightly ahead of improving security and other amenities on transit.

However, if MTS embraces such a project it would be at the risk of further stoking tensions with SANDAG’s top brass. Ikhrata has made the construction of a San Diego Grand Central that connects transit to the airport a centerpiece of his vision.
Note: Edited to remove reaction quotes from various officials. Click links for full articles.
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  #14470  
Old Posted Nov 12, 2019, 8:05 AM
CaliNative CaliNative is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by spoonman View Post
I’d prefer to see Gaslamp (and nearby areas) continue to evolve without seeing someone (in this case the Gaslamp Association) try to mold the area into something that may or may not succeed. I don’t want to see downtown streets turned into a mall. There are plenty of opportunities to create malls. We don’t need to sacrifice one of the highest energy areas in town for this purpose.
I think 5th St. (and maybe 4th & 6th too) should ban auto traffic, at least Fri-Sat. night.
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  #14471  
Old Posted Nov 12, 2019, 8:09 AM
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Originally Posted by Will O' Wisp View Post
I do see some of the points you're making, but I'll offer a rebuttal.

There is no authenticity to be preserved in the Gaslamp. Back in the 1970s the area was known as Stingaree, and it was nothing but warehouses, navy surplus stores, tattoo parlors, and porno shops (which were mostly fronts for brothels). It was such a scuzzy, dirty, unpleasant place the navy repeatedly banned sailors from going anywhere near, not that it tended to stop anyone. In the early 80s the Gaslamp Quarter Association was founded and over the next 20 years they carefully crafted Gaslamp into the Disneyland with drinks you see today. They kicked out all the porno shops and surplus stores, renovated all the warehouses into bars, and transformed 5th Ave into a sanitized parody of a sailor's drinking holiday. There's a certain irony to it, there are more bars on 5th now than back when its primary clientele actually was navy personnel on shore leave.

So the question here isn't if we should preserve some sort of "authentic Gaslamp Quarter experience" or somesuch, because that doesn't and never really has existed, but rather if we want to keep our 1980s/90s style entertainment district or update it to something more contemporary. I'll posit that a pedestrian promenade offers a lot of benefits over the current design. Bikes, scooters, and people stumbling out onto the street already make traffic on 5th a nightmare, and most people living downtown already avoid driving up and down that street without reason. There are a good deal of safety benefits to keeping cars away from people who are.... lets call it experiencing a temporary bout of impaired judgement. And all those parks and green spaces would provide more incentive for people to visit Gaslamp during the daytime, which they don't really do atm. All and all it provides a better experience to the area's customers, which is probably why the Gaslamp Quarter Association is looking to do it.

Because ultimately, this is a competition. If Gaslamp doesn't keep up to snuff tourists are going skip it and start visiting 3rd St Santa Monica instead, or Little Toyko in LA, or the Las Vegas strip for that matter (all of which have been renovated to some extent or another for a better pedestrian experience). And considering ~30% of our economy is based on tourism, we can hardly afford to watch one of our best destinations wither on the vine as everyone else improves.
Most of the buildings are original, aren't they? Including Wyatt Earp's saloon/casino. Just spruced up with new paint. Not a Disney replica. Maybe horse drawn carriages would be a nice touch if they banned auto traffic, at least Fri-Sat. Of course they'd have to have a road apple cleanup crew.. or mandate tail bags for the equines.
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  #14472  
Old Posted Nov 14, 2019, 2:35 AM
Will O' Wisp Will O' Wisp is offline
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Originally Posted by CaliNative View Post
Most of the buildings are original, aren't they? Including Wyatt Earp's saloon/casino. Just spruced up with new paint. Not a Disney replica. Maybe horse drawn carriages would be a nice touch if they banned auto traffic, at least Fri-Sat. Of course they'd have to have a road apple cleanup crew.. or mandate tail bags for the equines.
Oh all the buildings there are historic, not replicas. I'm not talking about the authenticity of the architecture, but of the "street life". That second part is most definitely artificial. Real street life doesn't have 4 bars on every block, and nothing else but restaurants and hotels. That's an entertainment district.

There was a time 5th Ave had an extremely active street life, in the late 19th to mid 20th centuries. And yes, Earp's saloon was a part of that. But there's more to street life than bars, nightclubs, and fancy restaurants. 5th Ave was a place of finance, commerce, government, and residence. City Hall used to be on 5th Ave. The city's public dock, destination for all incoming trade ships, lay at its end. There were banks and general stores and small distributors lining the street from beginning to end. At any time of day you'd find the streets filled with people.

In the 1950s and 60s that all decayed away, as urban street life did in every major American city. The area admittedly had problems with prostitution and crime since the city was founded, but by the 70s it had decayed until that was all there was left. When Horton plaza knocked down a huge section of the city in the 1980s it became clear that left unchecked all city's historic architecture would be demolished eventually, so the concept of the Gaslamp Quarter was conceived. The city would forbid any outward changes in the buildings' historic architecture, and in return would waive many restrictions usually put on nightlife establishments built there. It worked extremely well, the area was revitalized economically without needing to redevelop, but most of the buildings were gutted in the process of converting them into bars and clubs. So it forms a sort of shadow street life, with and expanded nightlife and an anemic daylife, as anyone who's been on 5th Ave at 2pm on a weekday can tell you.
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  #14473  
Old Posted Nov 14, 2019, 4:38 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Will O' Wisp View Post
Oh all the buildings there are historic, not replicas. I'm not talking about the authenticity of the architecture, but of the "street life". That second part is most definitely artificial. Real street life doesn't have 4 bars on every block, and nothing else but restaurants and hotels. That's an entertainment district.

There was a time 5th Ave had an extremely active street life, in the late 19th to mid 20th centuries. And yes, Earp's saloon was a part of that. But there's more to street life than bars, nightclubs, and fancy restaurants. 5th Ave was a place of finance, commerce, government, and residence. City Hall used to be on 5th Ave. The city's public dock, destination for all incoming trade ships, lay at its end. There were banks and general stores and small distributors lining the street from beginning to end. At any time of day you'd find the streets filled with people.

In the 1950s and 60s that all decayed away, as urban street life did in every major American city. The area admittedly had problems with prostitution and crime since the city was founded, but by the 70s it had decayed until that was all there was left. When Horton plaza knocked down a huge section of the city in the 1980s it became clear that left unchecked all city's historic architecture would be demolished eventually, so the concept of the Gaslamp Quarter was conceived. The city would forbid any outward changes in the buildings' historic architecture, and in return would waive many restrictions usually put on nightlife establishments built there. It worked extremely well, the area was revitalized economically without needing to redevelop, but most of the buildings were gutted in the process of converting them into bars and clubs. So it forms a sort of shadow street life, with and expanded nightlife and an anemic daylife, as anyone who's been on 5th Ave at 2pm on a weekday can tell you.
Great writing. Had me engaged the whole way through. If I may throw my measely couple of cents in regards to what constitutes a thriving street life, I'd say it will only work if there is a central hangout area (ie plazas in Latin America) and a ratio of 2:1 (residential:business). The more people live in areas with diverse *consumer* businesses, the more people will desire to spend time outside, in an inviting environment. By inviting environment I don't simply mean the beauty of the area (though it is important), but more specifically the ability to take care of anything and everything within walking distance. As soon as a car is required to achieve a need, that's when street presence dies.

PS. Not a city developer, just my logic.
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  #14474  
Old Posted Nov 17, 2019, 7:32 PM
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Looks like Pinnace Project moving again

11th and E is finally rising again. Any insiders have any news on the little Italy towers? 1st and Beech, Alexan Little Italy, and the Parking Garage tower on Kettner? How about the California Theatre... All these buildings we are just waiting on I guess. Not much action
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  #14475  
Old Posted Nov 18, 2019, 5:39 PM
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Not sure if I like the look of the building from the front
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  #14476  
Old Posted Nov 18, 2019, 5:59 PM
Boatguy619 Boatguy619 is offline
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Originally Posted by Boatguy619 View Post



Not sure if I like the look of the building from the front
Hmmmm doesnt look like the photos posted, trying again with a different method.

20191117_144810 by kevinbeatty, on Flickr

20191117_145617 by kevinbeatty, on Flickr
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  #14477  
Old Posted Nov 18, 2019, 7:55 PM
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Yikes. I did not recognize the building from the front lol. Much better in profile...
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  #14478  
Old Posted Nov 18, 2019, 8:55 PM
Clinton Robinson Clinton Robinson is offline
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Thank you very much for the photo updates on that naval project in Downtown. I have to be honest I am not that excited about this project however it does add to DT density when driving through. I hate that lame height restriction too that the FAA imposed on the DT of SD. I used to live on 14th and Market for a while and really love DT San Diego. I am looking forward to more highrise development DT. If anyone can post some areial photos of DT that would be AWESOME!
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  #14479  
Old Posted Nov 18, 2019, 11:28 PM
JerellO JerellO is offline
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The color looks more white than the pinkish stone colors in the renders
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  #14480  
Old Posted Nov 18, 2019, 11:47 PM
Boatguy619 Boatguy619 is offline
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2019-11-18_03-43-06 by kevinbeatty, on Flickr

It looks nothing like the renderings directly from MPG website. Glass down the middle of the real one, slanted roof and white cladding. I'm not a fan, but luckily it's not the focus point of the project.
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