^ Agreed.

Camp Pendleton isn't my first choice, but with the Improvements to I-5, 76, and the rail lines between SD and OC, a Camp Pendleton airport is starting to make more sense for the region.

If Camp Pendleton is opened, I'm in favor of closing Lindbergh and using Camp Pendleton and Tijuana as the two primary airports for the city. Perhaps that is the game plan in the end. Closing Lindbergh is not an entirely popular idea at the moment.

Side notes...as someone who has lived near and flown out of John Wayne many times, direct destinations are extremely limited, almost always requiring a layover. Many in OC from Costa Mesa and farther south would just as easily make the trip to the Worldport in Camp Pendleton as go to LAX. While the airport would be farther for some in Southern San Diego (though they could potentially go to TIJ (or Lindbergh for now)), the airport could benefit heavily from the premium/business markets of North County SD and South County OC. I suppose studies would have to be done to determine whether any of this is feasible. Most of San Diego's density is south of the 8 and it would have to be easy to get to Camp Pendleton (or use TIJ) for this to work.

Just my opinion but I see the opposite.

If, and it's a huge IF, San Diego were to ever put an airport in Miramar it would cost Billions. That debt would be crushing. Also, by 2050, San Diego is expected to have a population north of 2 million people.

I think you can solve 2 birds with one stone by first building out a massive world class airport at Miramar. Once completed, you demolish everything at Lindbergh and open up the development flood gates.

You could lay down a city grid with light rail running down the center. There would be no height restrictions and it would be easy to create a development code that would essentially create a 2nd downtown.

The revenue from this could easily pay off the new airport and in turn allow San Diego to grow as needed without additional freeway construction.

They're slated to occupy one of the NBC buildings, correct. As a contractor who builds primarily for the DoD, I'm constantly getting lost in the labyrinth of cubicles that are the guts of that place. If I was the Navy, I'd be screaming to push this thing along and get a new space built. Not only is it a trashy waterfront scene, it's garbage for the employees, as well.

Side note, Papa Doug sure does love his concrete doesn't he?? Seems like everything has some sort of a stone finish, very little glass in his projects.

Just for shits and giggles. As you described.

http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/...psmfeatehn.png

http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/...pselnkwpuh.png

http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/...pswy2zc80k.png

How awesome would that be!!!!!!

You could even do a 'central park' that would run the entire length of city blocks after 3 or 4 blocks facing the bay. Or flip it and do a park the entire run in front of 3 or 4 blocks.

Regarding Manchester's plans, I happen to like the aesthetics of the development. Yes it's Rockefeller like and doesn't have a historic relavency in San Diego but I think the alternative of a more glass heavy facade would begin to create a Vancouver like monotone visual. Not appealing in my view.

My problem is with the uses of the project. The 1200 room hotel is silly and honestly a bad location for such a hotel... well removed from the conv center and the opposite end of where the likely expansion will occur. It will not do well. Plus, if the expansion occurs, expect 500 more Hilton rooms, 1500 more Mariott Rooms to come. The hotel market for downtown is strong for group hotels but Christ. That is beyond a healthy amount of new supply and each of the existing hotels will struggle as a result.

What happened to the museum? Why not add more office, in addition to the Navy allocation? - the waterfront has to be attractive to tenants. Why not timeshare, as urban timeshare developments are becoming hugely popular in tourist markets. Or a second small scale luxury hotel. Create some synergy for the facility and more high end demand to go along with the new Ritz in development.

I understand the main reason is likely the port and their overbearing restrictions but this project could be much more interesting if it had a bit more diversity to it.

Not sure I agree.

Right now a lot of the downtown 'hip' hotels are booked by regional folks doing a weekend out. They draw from as far as Temecula for a Fri/Sat stay. Not many families check into the Hard Rock and I think San Diego has a good business for this.

Then there is a lot of family traffic that gets spread out to poor locations or forced to stay at the beach when they come to the area for things like the Zoo, Sea World and Wild Animal Park. Many are forced to stay in random locations around the city due to hotels being full at the prime locations. I am sure Mom and Dad would rather walk with the kids to 200 places to eat downtown than to drive 2 minutes to a crappy place in Hotel Circle.

Lastly, the mega hotels have their own ball rooms and conference rooms. This plays to wedding season, which runs almost the entire year and smaller conferences that want 'San Diego' but can't book the convention center.

I think the last group is the biggest underserved market. I have been to 20+ trade shows in NYC but have never stepped foot into the NYC convention center. It's always been a 300-750 person type event that's been done at a large hotel.

That would be really impressive. I always imagined there could be a greenbelt to follow the footprint of the original runway to honor the old airport and its place in aviation history so to speak.

Only way the City could come up with the funding up front would be bonds (or if the federal government ever came up with an infrastructure bank). Billions of dollars in bonds would be a tough sell.

Also, I imagine if Lindbergh was out of the picture, what kind of height limit if any would North Island impose? I guess since it's one way in one way out maybe there wouldn't be one, which would be great. This is my favorite thing to dream about future SD though, and that layout would be incredible.

Thanks for the info! Working in those old buildings would be depressing, but the location must make up for it some.

And you're right about Doug Manchester's aesthetic choices. Some of those renderings really remind me of the Hyatt. And he really likes the french roof with a copper patina look (NBC's Office 4A and the Hyatt both have this).

There is 865,000SF of office in addition to the Navy's pacific headquarters building. I am in favor of building office, but this is a very healthy office development.

Regarding...

A large, regional airport at Camp Pendleton, I'm totally for it. It was my favorite realistic option (Miramar is my favorite fantasy option) during the airport search in 2006. However, Ontario Intl Airport may be a warning for us on preemptive expansion. LAX bought that airport as a sort of annex back in the day, and it never took off as a real alternative for LA/IE/RS travelers. We would need to do extensive studies and research to see if people really would make a point to fly out of northern SD, and so far Carlsbad hasn't proven too promising either.

Closing SAN - not going to happen. A majority of the city loves Lindbergh for it's deficiencies: small size, central location, easy navigation, etc. Selling them on a supplemental airport is a stretch, trying to get them to close SAN would be nearly impossible.

Converting SAN into an urban center: love it, but no. The best we could hope for would be a liberty station-like development. Low-rise construction, maybe 5 stories max. Maybe. Golden Hill residents have been grumbling about Pinnacle on the Park, what do you think the well-to-do in Bankers and Mission Hills would say if they were told their sweeping bay views would be obliterated by a wall of high-rises? It would be Bay Park all over again. I could easily see a Cory Briggs type coming up with a ballot initiative to convert SAN into a park or nature preserve for fairy shrimp. No EIR would be able to support such a massive redevelopment in central AND bayfront SD in an era of rampant CEQA abuses. It's a lovely idea, but I just don't see how you'd get people on board.

Love the mock up though, props to that. :cheers:

Oh! A note on the hotel market in SD. According to people I know who work in that industry, SD is deficient in hotel rooms. Our market has a ridiculously high occupancy rate, and with the difficulty in building new hotels (or anything else for that matter) any new units are actually welcome. So it's not surprising Manchester has such a huge hotel planned for the site, because the market could theoretically support it, and any other new construction on the bayfront.

^^^ I agree with you and Dales: SD is almost like Vegas keep on building and we'll fill em up. Just kidding I don't think we could absorb 15k new hotel rooms but 8k in and around downtown over the next 10 years no problem. I also look forward to those idiot squatters finally getting kicked out of De Anza Cove and a mega resort going in there. The view corridor towards the SW on that property is epic, its the longest stretch of water on Mission Bay.

San Diego will continue to be a popular tourist destination as people look for convenient close in trips by passing Hawaii and more tropical distant locales for poor man's tropical SD beaches lol, hey our ocean water keeps getting warmer every summer!

SDFAN: Regarding highrises on what is now SAN, it wouldn't block bay views from Bankers Hill it would block the views of far western Mission Hills to the North of Washington street who have to look south to the bay and ocean. It wouldn't really block water views of Point Loma or Bankers Hill residents. It would just block their views of eachother (Hills on both sides of runway). I do agree with you though it would take 30 years to figure out what to do with SAN if it were ever closed.

Why are you saying Palomar hasn't been doing well, they haven't even really given it a chance to thrive it can't take 737's right now. Look at how well Ft. Lauderdale does in Miami, they built it out with a legit runway and terminal and it does great.

Beautiful shot of San Diego by the new courthouse I found on reddit by user NegligentEntrustment

http://i.imgur.com/zb6L7if.jpg

Still too many low rises for my liking

That part of town really needs to fill in and the Ash street corridor east of there as well has so many parking lots and crappy one or two floor structures that are obviously tear downs. With Little Italy becoming one of the hottest urban neighborhoods west of the Mississippi and easily walkable from this area I don't see why more developers aren't swooping in.

Oh and SDfan: Why are people in Golden Hill complaining about Pinnacle at the Park? It is West of Sherman Heights not Golden Hill and its west of I-5 don't they know thats fair game for going up to 500ft. I thought part of the appeal of GH was views of the skyline???

Does anyone know how much of an investment it would make to increase the speeds of the Coaster? I know the slow spot is between Old Town and Sorrento Valley. That run takes about 20 minutes.

The reason I ask is it's about 1hr from Santa Fe Depot to Oceanside. A Camp Pendleton extension would be add maybe another 10min.

I would think you would want the trip to be closer to 30 to 40 minutes. It takes about 30 minutes from the Embarcadero to SFO on the Bart. Santa Fe to Tijuana is about an hour as well.


I think SDfan is right. 1hr travel to either airport might make it impossible to close SAN. :(


Too bad North Island is not an option.....

Maybe the ideal situation would just be a floating airport, as proposed many times in the past. If the prices went down for construction, it would be the best option as it could still be located near the city, without the problems that Lindbergh causes.

They've been working on double tracking the entire line from Santa Fe Depot up past L.A. This map summarizes all of the projects they've been working on. These are mainly smaller upgrades but they should help speed things up quite a bit once they're done. They're planning on straightening out a lot of the curves around Miramar that slows trains down. 20 years of work though... I wish we'd prioritize all of our transit projects first. I think all of the "big" ideas like tunneling under Del Mar or UTC were ruled out though.

They're thinking of adding a COASTER stop at Pendelton. A fact sheet for the project is here. It's in the very early stages.

Streamliner: How can they double track through South Del Mar? The tracks are literally on the edge of a cliff and I don't see how it could possibly be double tracked there.

You're right, it looks like they aren't double tracking the entire line, but it should be enough to really help with congestion. The segment from north Del Mar to Sorrento Valley appears to be staying single-tracked. Just some bluff stabilization and bridge replacements. They've always talked about a tunnel through Del Mar there, so maybe it's not worth the fight to double track through there at the moment. Though I doubt either will happen.