There's been talk of a Regent at Horton Plaza, Ritz Carlton at Lane Field and Harbor Drive, and Mandarin Oriental at La Jolla Commons. I'll take anyone of these, thank you very much. St. Regis and Trump International would be cool, too. ;)



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From yesterday's SD Metro's Daily Report -


When Perry Dealy mentioned yesterday a Little Italy developer had secured a letter of intent from Whole Foods to open a store in Little Italy, CCDC’s Nancy Graham had to jump in. “Everyone has a letter of intent from Whole Foods,” she said. “We are taking bets in the office (on which one will actually happen.)”

I'd really like to see the full article on the 47 floor tower that was in the SDDT if any of you have access.

About Whole Foods...I love that store and think that it would be great to have one closer to downtown than Hillcrest. I think that the prospect of opening one in Little Italy is great as long as it doesn't impact the small groceries in that neighborhood.

We really do need a Whole Foods downtown, I would like to see on in East Village too. The downside is that Whole Foods is pricey, and I think downtown (hopefully East Village) could really bennefit from a Trader Joe's and/or a Henry's. I prefer these to the large Albertson's/Ralph's chains and do drive from downtown up to Hillcrest just to go grocery shopping.

A couple months ago I went to all three websites - Henry's(Wild oats), whole foods as well as Trader Joe's and submitted the suggestion on their websites (they have areas for submitting store location suggestions)> If anyone else downtown agrees we need these stores, I suggest doing the same ;)

me too, I tried and they charge to subscribe to the site, but i figure if we have a proposal for something over 500 ft it would show up in multiple news publications

Mandarin-Oriental Hotel

I have seen several posts over the past 4 months linking Mandarin-Oriental and La Jolla Commons -Where are people getting this information??????

I have done every search possible for Mandarin-Oriental and the La Jolla Commons site and have found not one credible item indicating this is/was ever the case. All I find are blogs like this one where people are saying that's what might go in there :) Would like to know if there is some source of finding this kind of information that I don't know about, because I'd like to be able to research it :)

Mandarin-Oriental website has future hotel planned through 2010 and San Diego is not listed
La Jolla Commons site and press releases say nothing indicating Mandarin-Oriental is or was ever being considered
I hope it happens though, it is a really great hotel chain

An Old blogger named scottb used to imform us on all the happening of d-town. Professsionally he is an illustarator, he does some work for some SD projects...

Here is his website;

http://www.baumbergerstudio.com/

There are couple of newer san diego projects that I don't know of....

McMillan Tower and Wonder Bread for example

check it out......


Also check this out.... I found the FAA regulations for Limberg field...

http://www.airport-data.com/airport/SAN/

It claims TERRAIN & BLDGS TO 500' MSL N & E WITHIN 1 1/2 MI.

Now... I would imagine that east village is 1 mile and 1/2 away!!!!:tup:

Cool site - he must have inside info, wish he would start posting on here again so we can get the scoop on what's planning on going where :)

There is a rendering of the Indigo Hotel planned for the East Village - - CCDC lists this project but doesn't include the rendering

I believe what I posted was the full article. My other office gets the paper edition of the Transcript so I'll try to look for it when I'm there again, but it looks to me like it was just a "sidebar" article. I'm sure if the proposal is legit, there will be more news about it soon.


There have been rumors of Whole Foods and Trader Joe's coming to downtown for awhile now. I think downtown has the ideal demographics for a Whole Foods Market and a Trader Joe's. Not only would it be closer to the people in Coronado, but it would help take some pressure off the always crowded stores in Hillcrest. Tesco is entering the market with their Fresh & Easy http://www.freshandeasy.com/ stores to compete with Trader Joe's. They are planning 30 stores in SD County alone and I'm sure they have one planned for downtown.

Downtown already has Ralph's, Albertson's and Smart & Final, so I'm wondering if having a Whole Foods, Trader Joe's and Tesco would be overkill?

Here's the link to the article that mentions the Mandarin Oriental that was posted in Feb. 2006. I believe there was a similar article in the U-T printed around the same time.

http://www.sdnews.com/vnews/display....8?in_archive=1

East Village is most certainly more than 1.5 miles away from the airport. So who among us, will point this out to CCDC and the developers? ;)

Too bad everybody fails to see this.:shrug:

He's also got renderings for the old police headquarters near Seaport Village.

Edit: This guy has a ton of renderings I've never seen! :tup:

List of projects we haven't seen from http://www.baumbergerstudio.com/:

St. Paul's (near the St. Paul's church in Little Italy)
777 Beech Street (look incredible in my opinion:))
Katalyst
Mondrian (the backside...wish i could post images from that for you guys)
McMillan Tower
Mercado
G Lofts East
Old Police Headquarters (looks pretty nice)
Pacific Gateway (a nice NBC rendering)
Wonder Bread (im assuming this will be in the East Village where the current Wonder Bread factory building is...)
Hotel Indigo
Laundry Lofts (different renderings)
Monarch School (different rendering)

Anyone have any idea if it is alright to post all his pics on here? I have all the pictures, of good quality, that i can post. Im not sure if 1. he/she will get pissed, and 2. if it is illegal.

^It should be fine, as long as you credit him.

In attempting to locate the legal mumbo jumbo about the downtown height limit I came across an interesting info. Provided on the FAA site is the determination or findings of developers proposing to build stuff near airports. One building caught my eye... one which may have seemed dead. Maybe?

Ghods Builders filed papers as recently as Thursday to build the Monaco Condominiums located on Broadway between 8th & 9th. The application indicates construction would occur between April 1st 2008 and completed in late 2009. The height is 435 feet with an initial elevation of 65 feet. The mean height above sea level would be 500.

https://oeaaa.faa.gov/oeaaa/external...eCaseID=518452

Good find!

As Trader Joes was opening in Pt. Loma, I would drop in and talk with the General & Regional Mgrs about this, and they told me that corporate wants to open one downtown, they just need to find the space (8,000-10,000 SF) The real problem is that developers can get over $3 per SF for retail space if they are smaller, them MOST TJs is going to pay is $2, since it is an anchor/specialty draw. Anyway, the guy always told me that if you know of a space, let him know and he would pass it up the ladder.

Speaking of places that sell food and what not; What's with the 7-11 boom?

According to 7/11, there are currently 7 stores in what is considered "downtown"...

To me this is the most challenging part of downtown right now, Retail! There is so much vacant space and, one would have to have guess that the rents are out of line with business models. For downtown to grow and prosper, and become more of a 'neighborhood' retail rents have to fall/correct.

I applaud CCDC for requiring ground floor retail, but I think it might become neccessary for CCDC to require developers to subsidize retail rents to encourage growth. I think Seattle and Portland have programs like this. Just requiring it (retail) doesn't make it happen.

I also understand that a critical mass of residents and workers are necessary for any retail to succeed as well. I have heard a statistics that it takes 1600 people per urban city block to make retail successful. I don't think our current densities offer this. Any one have any info on that?

As far as Trader Joe's is considered their business model is driven by LOW RENT. They do not pay market rents in most of their markets. I think a savvy downtown commercial investor might consider offering them some space in conjunction with a larger commercial project to 'get it going'. I am sure if the price is right, Trader Joes would be in Downtown.

I notice a lot of the older buildings are starting to get retail (Along 9th/10th Ave near Market and G... That is nice to see.

Any thoughts?