The SD "Trolley" is LRT with a dedicated ROW.

Streetcars are usually one car length, ROW in traffic, stops more frequently, basically like a fancy bus.

As we celebrate the 4th....







San Diego is a hot destination this Fourth of July
POSTED 5:29 PM, JULY 3, 2015

SAN DIEGO — That “no vacancy” sign will be posted all over San Diego this holiday weekend.

The San Diego Tourism Authority said the hotel occupancy rate is 99 percent over the three-day weekend that started Friday.

San Diego Tourism uthority President Joe Terzi said San Diego’s hotel industry is enjoying a record-setting year with an occupancy rate of 78 percent.

San Diego residents benefit from those high numbers. There is a 10.5 percent Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) that goes directly to the city’s general fund and helps pay for police and fire protection in addition to other city services.

Terzi told FOX 5 that California is spending $100 million in advertising worldwide and they see a big increase in foreign visitors to the Golden State.

The Tourism Authority said they target foreign travelers because they tend to have more vacation time than Americans and, because of the cost of the trip, they tend to spend an average of about 8 to 12 days in the U.S. when they travel here.

^^ Do those stats cover the city only or SD County wide? Obviously Cbad is blowing up with hotels and I can't believe Encinitas is still lagging has not built a new hotel in years especially with Oceanside stepping up. Hotels are very hot here right now, any news on the projects for NTC hotels right next to airport and Sunroad's Harbor Island project those are moving slow as molasses in this red hot market.

[QUOTE=mello;7085084]^^ I can't believe Encinitas is still lagging has not built a new hotel in years

Enci likes it that way . just like del mar they want to be a sleepy beach town

The cities average is 78.5% with the county coming in at 76.3%.


You can see a bunch more stats here:


http://www.sandiego.org/industry-research.aspx


Hotel business is doing great this year which is why I think some of the hotels that were of a greater distance from the convention center were giving comic con and the city some grief with getting on board to lock in rates and keep the con here a few more years. It's easy to get cocky when things are going well.

It's also a good sign for getting that Ritz Carlton built with a current strong market happening now.


Want to know why we are even a hotter market for visitors than usual? Start checking weather around the country these days and you'll see why....

[QUOTE=Bertrice;7085107]Yeah, I'm living in Cardiff now after spending time in Solana Beach before.

You know there has to be some middle ground between being to "sleepy" like Encinitas type towns and to much "action" like the OB or PB types.

But yeah, nimby's pretty much rule here.

Another positive stat is for the other local team the Padres.

OK, so some people thought they'd be higher up right now but at least fans feel they are heading in the right direction compared to the previous ownership which had no direction.

We've moved up in attendance from 20th place last year to 12th so far this year. That's on pace to hit the 2.5 million mark if they stay steady.


If they hang around .500 with their record this year and continue to make good (smart) off season moves don't be surprised to see them easily crack the top 10 next year.

2016 would be a great time for them and the city to showcase itself with the All Star game here. A few of the current downtown projects will be completed by then too.

Nothing like free advertising for your city. :D

Nerv: Whatever happened to that parcel at the North end of Solana Beach with the epic views that was slated to be a hotel and now has signs on it trying to get "the public" to purchase it for open space? Some info on that would be appreciated.

I'm sure you guys are familiar with Gary London, in this UT article concerning what else MV site could be used for and economic drivel about Chargers etc the writer says London thinks the site could be used to lure "the next facebook, or google" on a contiguous corporate campus site. What do you guys think of this? Any chances of SD putting together a proposal for some hot start up or established company either at the Qualcomm site or possibly, Sports Arena, or MTS Busyard? It seems to me that every metro area is trying to lure corporations and this kind of thing doesn't happen every day. Here is the article:

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/...-nfl-chargers/

I'm going to try to call Gary London this week to get more info on this.

You're talking about the prime piece that sits on the 101 as you enter Solana Beach from Cardiff's direction.

I really don't know. There has been talk of everything from a park to hotel or restaurant,etc.. at one time or another. It's a really nice piece of land so hopefully nothing stupid is picked.

FYI, one of the stupid things that happened many years ago with some of our cities here on the coast was they didn't focus and build much in the way of parks. The reasoning I'm told was because they had a beach instead.

Encinitas was one of them and has been trying to catch up which is why recently you see the new 43 acre park in Cardiff finally opening after 10+ years. These get debated for years like anything else.

So if Solana beach wanted to make that lot a nice park I wouldn't mind either.

Like most people on this thread I'm hoping that downtown keeps growing with new buildings and higher towers but parks are important too and since they don't make money they often are forgotten in cities which is sad because when they are done right they greatly add to a cities quality of life.

Hopefully as downtown San Diego grows they don't forget this lesson we've learned the hard way on the coast.

east village green concepts

http://eastvillagegreen.com/get-involved/

http://eastvillagegreen.com/wp-conte...Concept-11.jpg

http://eastvillagegreen.com/wp-conte...Concept-23.jpg

http://eastvillagegreen.com/wp-conte...Concept-32.jpg

Sorta surprised that at least one of those concepts doesn't propose a pedestrian/bicycle bridge over 14th street connecting the two portions of the park.

All of the East Village Green concepts are good. The trick will be to keep the selected option uncluttered without extra amenities thrown in to please particular constituencies. I am a bike advocate myself, but with all due respect, a bike bridge would mean long ramps up to it, which would be very intrusive.

It will now be an open space park and called Harbaugh Seaside Trails:

Gateway Park renamed Harbaugh trails
http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/...eway-harbaugh/

Does anyone know why the bike sharing program doesn't include the beach areas? Are they worried about the salt air?

Seems like a no brainer.

Just got off the phone with Gary London here are the bullet points. He says he has spend countless hours discussing this with city people and a couple of County people Scott Sherman one of the CSAG members etc. He wants to bring Facebook, Google type regional offices here. Santa Monica and Playa Vista have blown up why not Mission Valley (Qualcomm site). He envisions MV site as becoming the next Century City with 4 million sq. feet of office space SDSU research, tons of housing, a park etc.

He says why not give land for free or a huge discount to a tech company or a disgruntled firm that wants to leave Connecticut or just expand operations. At MTS Busyard site he says total BS that it will take 7 years to move plenty of dead space along Pac Hwy North of downtown to put it. He says city is sitting on a goldmine 4 city blocks that could fit 3.2 million sq feet of office space. London has done extensive studies on all of this.

Regarding Chargers, he isn't saying these plans are only doable if they leave. If they want to be downtown fine just realize it would take longer then you have the entire Qualcomm property freed up to do something really special. What do you guys think? Is it viable to package MV land or MTS busyard for a major corporate expansion?

I think its viable, and I like the idea using both spots to attract valuable entities like "the-next-facebook". I think it would be a better economic choice than building a stadium for the Chargers.

Fwiw: I also like the idea of allowing SDSU to expand into the current Qualcomm site, and building a right-sized stadium for SDSU football and a San Diego MLS team.

I love the idea but could the airport hold San Diego back on this? SFO is serviced OK (don't see many Facebook execs flying Southwest) but going to NY, Chicago or Intl. is a bit of a challenge.

Get your facts straight, man. Words matter.

There are 10 direct flights daily to New York and 14 to Chicago, not counting connections. How is that "a bit of a challenge"?

I think in the US, San Diego has more than sufficient airlift, and with improvements to Lindbergh it will keep getting better. This doesn't even account for the Tijuana-US airport being improved.

Internationally, its a minor challenge, but a 30 min hop to LA, to then go anywhere in the world isnt that awful, compared to say, 3 hours of extra flight time from Chicago.

Speaking of attracting business, I always thought San Diego could have gone the direction Miami has. Really target Latin American corporations' US-Based offices. Latin banks, etc. It is as convenient as Miami IMO. And then target Asian business for the same purpose, being as convenient as LA. SD isn't utilizing it's corporate draw as much as it could.