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-   -   SAN DIEGO | Boom Rundown, Vol. 2 (https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/showthread.php?t=126473)

CurtisParkChris Sep 1, 2019 4:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Will O' Wisp (Post 8674669)
Welcome to the thread!

This is excellent - thanks for the warm welcome and overview! Diving in now to your major project highlights!

mello Sep 1, 2019 8:09 PM

Will O Wisp: Now you have ground breaking on T1 moved back to 2022?? Just a few posts ago you said 2021... What on earth could push it back that far?

Why do you keep referring to MPG as having only 2 highrises? It is clearly 3 are you counting the hotels as 1 tower due to the ugly sky bridge thing?

Seaport Redo: Not breaking ground till 2024? Jeez that is way off in the future and the economic collapse will have occured by then. I suppose 2024 is realistic because the economic turmoil could be settled down and the developer could score the needed financing at that point.

Can you explain why its taking so long, thanks. :cheers:

Will O' Wisp Sep 1, 2019 11:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mello (Post 8675134)
Will O Wisp: Now you have ground breaking on T1 moved back to 2022?? Just a few posts ago you said 2021... What on earth could push it back that far?

Crap, I posted the posted the actual year I think it will start instead of the propaganda numb- 2021 assumes nothing else will go wrong with the second round of environmental reviews, there's no delays in getting labor or materials (tariffs *cough cough*), no issues with financing due to a recession, etc...

Quote:

Originally Posted by mello (Post 8675134)
Why do you keep referring to MPG as having only 2 highrises? It is clearly 3 are you counting the hotels as 1 tower due to the ugly sky bridge thing?

I personally count towers that share one base as a a single building. So this...

https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/d...b2f-snap-image

...is a single building because both towers rise out of the same base structure. Worth noting MPG itself counts it the same way.

https://cdn0.locable.com/uploads/res...amp=1488239015

Quote:

Originally Posted by mello (Post 8675134)
Seaport Redo: Not breaking ground till 2024? Jeez that is way off in the future and the economic collapse will have occured by then. I suppose 2024 is realistic because the economic turmoil could be settled down and the developer could score the needed financing at that point.

Can you explain why its taking so long, thanks. :cheers:

I don't know, ask them: https://www.seaportsandiegoca.com/timeline.html

This is an extremely complex project with a lot of a lot of moving parts. CEQA, CCC approval, financing, labor, all could be a source of delays. I can't tell you exactly how they came to that exact figure without additional information.

mello Sep 2, 2019 2:16 AM

Thanks regarding financing of terminal one redo, i called Lori Weisberg at the UT and asked her if the economy goes belly up is T1 still a go and she said yes. According to her the money is there no matter what happens between now and groundbreaking in 2021. We can be assured it will be built.

Will O' Wisp Sep 2, 2019 3:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mello (Post 8675343)
Thanks regarding financing of terminal one redo, i called Lori Weisberg at the UT and asked her if the economy goes belly up is T1 still a go and she said yes. According to her the money is there no matter what happens between now and groundbreaking in 2021. We can be assured it will be built.

Oh it will be built, that much is certain. Commercial service airport has two major methods of financing capital improvement projects. The first is Passenger Facility Charges (PFCs), which is a surcharge added to every passenger's ticket when they fly out of an airport. PFCs are capped by federal law at $4.50 a head, so with SDIA hosting 24 million pax a year it can look at pulling in a bit over $100 million annually. You typically multiply this with debt service, airport bonds typically have extremely low interest rates due to their reliability.

But PFCs aren't usually enough to fund something as big as a new terminal terminal complex, and they certainly weren't enough to fund this. So the airport went out and negotiated with the airlines under its Residual Cost Agreement (RCA). The RCA is a contract that states, in essence, that the airlines will always make the airport whole. If the PFCs can't cover all of the debt the airport needs to pay for its terminal, the airlines pay the rest. Obviously the airlines wouldn't have signed such an agreement unless they were giving a good deal of control over what gets built and when, and that control is divvied up based on the percentage that each airline makes of the airport's total operations, and so if a certain southwestern airline says SDIA needs to slow down its spend to keep that airline's profit margin in line SDIA will have to take that into account.

You'll notice something though about PFCs and RCAs. They are innately tied to how well the air travel sector is doing. If there's a market crash, and less people are flying, then they're be less PFC dollars to be had. And while the airport has a contract with airlines that states they will keep paying under the RCA, if the economy is in the crapper and the airlines are going bankrupt that won't be worth much (similar things happened in 2001 and 2008). That leaves the final, uncomfortable option of asking for the money direct from the federal government in the form of an Airport Improvement Program (AIP) grant, ideally with matching funds from Caltrans. Airport take these grants all the time, SDIA just accepted an AIP grant to rebuild a taxiway last month, but tapping the taxpayers for this much would be highly controversial. The entire airport leadership would probably be fired, construction will get delayed, the final terminal might even be downsized, but in the end our government has decided projects of this sort are a public good so they would fund it.

So as you can see the airport has funding backstops, and backstops for the backstops, and in the end unless Washington is in flames there will be money available. We built the extension to terminal two in the midst of the great recession after all. But that doesn't mean that the funding will always be immediate and available, just that it will be there eventually.

All of that said, funding isn't the worrying part. It's more likely than not to be readily available, even with some fairly radical cost increases. The biggest uncertainty right now is that we still can't decide on how to connect public transit to the airport. Hassan and Falconer are so very, very set on their 'San Diego Grand Central' at the SPAWAR site, which theyve been trying to play up as almost a done deal. But while the SPAWAR site has a lot of potential, right now SANDAG can't afford it, the transit system it's supposed to lay at the heart of is extremely controversial within the SANDAG board, the Navy has studiously avoided endorsing the idea (other than agreeing to let private developers include it in their proposals for the site, if they want to), and the local NIMBY groups are really starting to wake up to the idea that Hassan and Falconer are proposing to build a defacto second downtown in the midway district without consulting the public at all. Desmond is throwing up all sorts of complaints about cost and Gomez isn't happy about the 10-15+ year timeline, so the plan is taking fire from both the left and the right. Now Gomez has MTS studying a direct trolley connection, except now she wants it to go all the way to Point Loma or even PB, which is playing hell with the original plan of having whatever we build dead end in between T1 and T2. We're already over two months behind schedule and the powers that be can't come to an agreement.

JerellO Sep 3, 2019 3:33 AM

All the buildings except 4A are considered high rises.

HurricaneHugo Sep 3, 2019 5:47 AM

Went to Sydney in July and just came back from San Francisco this weekend

Saw first hand what world class waterfronts are.

One day San Diego...one day

SDCAL Sep 3, 2019 7:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Will O' Wisp (Post 8674669)
Manchester Pacific Gateway (MPG): The biggest development in downtown SD history, MPG finally started construction last year after a 15 year legal saga. It's a hotel/retail/office complex stretching across 8 blocks of waterfront real estate, replacing a navy office and a mass of parking lots. Includes two high rises and a smattering of mid rises. Scheduled for completion in 2021

Are you saying 2021 for the entire project or just for the Navy building? There is no way they can meet 2021 for the entire project now that they’ve shelved everything until the Navy building is totally complete and the Navy approves it.

mello Sep 3, 2019 9:10 PM

At the pace its going Navy building will be finished by December or Jan, its just a shame that they arent simultaneously digging the underground foundations for office and hotel towers now... I still dont totally understand why they arent because the massive excavation for the base of those buildings will take months.

JerellO Sep 4, 2019 1:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mello (Post 8676515)
At the pace its going Navy building will be finished by December or Jan, its just a shame that they arent simultaneously digging the underground foundations for office and hotel towers now... I still dont totally understand why they arent because the massive excavation for the base of those buildings will take months.

Navy employees still need places to park I’m assuming. I used to work at the navy building and if they removed the parking spaces where the new tower is... parking is a bitch lol

Nv_2897 Sep 4, 2019 3:01 AM

According to @realportfolio on instagram states, "Pacific Gate’s sister development, currently called “Pacific and Broadway” has filed a 3 year extension on its already entitled construction permit. Meaning we could see the new development begin construction within 3 years, if the extension is approved." I wonder what is the specific reason for the construction extension maybe for the incoming recession or because the Manchester Pacific Gateway was completion date was pushed back :shrug: What are your thoughts? I was really excited for this project.

https://i.imgur.com/PYm7WJR.png

https://i.imgur.com/WRyVbKR.jpg

Will O' Wisp Sep 4, 2019 4:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SDCAL (Post 8675994)
Are you saying 2021 for the entire project or just for the Navy building? There is no way they can meet 2021 for the entire project now that they’ve shelved everything until the Navy building is totally complete and the Navy approves it.

2021 for the entire project, per the press release for the groundbreaking.

http://www.manchesterpacificgateway....roundbreaking/

Don't ask me how they intend to do it, I'm just relaying MPG's own figures.

HurricaneHugo Sep 5, 2019 7:37 AM

Liberty National buys the rest of the lot between Park/13th/Broadway/C St

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com...r-7-75-million

Still needs final approval, hopefully in October

mello Sep 5, 2019 9:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JerellO (Post 8676796)
Navy employees still need places to park I’m assuming. I used to work at the navy building and if they removed the parking spaces where the new tower is... parking is a bitch lol

There has not been parking on the site since any construction began the entire site is scrapped and simply dirt. So that is not a reason for the lack of digging for the foundations of taller towers.

Nv 2897: Regarding Pacific Gate's semi twin I posted a couple of months ago that I called BOSA and they said there are no plans to start on that tower that they are still working on selling Savina, etc. They told me that Nat Bosa thinks Manchester Development will add value to the Pac Gate Twin project and that he wants to wait until it is farther along to begin construction on his project... So looks like this one will be a while and not break ground before recession.

Liberty National : Does anyone know anything about this company in the article Hugo listed they are also the developer for 1st and Beech and many other towers... They sound like big timers but have they actually gotten anything significant built in SD or California? :shrug:

Will O' Wisp Sep 5, 2019 11:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mello (Post 8679041)
Liberty National : Does anyone know anything about this company in the article Hugo listed they are also the developer for 1st and Beech and many other towers... They sound like big timers but have they actually gotten anything significant built in SD or California? :shrug:

Well this has been an interesting journey.

Liberty's website is very bare bones, and doesn't contain a single completed project. Which is very, very odd because they claim to have been founded in 1976.

Something wasn't adding up so looked more into Mark Schmidt, the CEO, CFO, and secretary of Liberty National. And that's when this legal settlement showed up. Turns out a Mr. Mark Schmidt was previously CEO of Wilmark Communities, which got into serious trouble last year for falsely withholding renter's security deposits and laying bogus charges on anyone who moved out.

With the info I already had I managed to find at least one article which confirms Mark Schmidt of Liberty National and Mark Schmidt of Wilmark Communities are the same person. Looks like after all that controversy Schmidt decided a name change was in order. According to the U-T article, Wilmark Communities built 8 apartment complexes in San Diego, and I've found at least one other in Florida, so Liberty National (nee Wilmark) is indeed a legit developer. But what I haven't been able to find is any evidence they've ever constructed a high rise project before.

JerellO Sep 6, 2019 5:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mello (Post 8679041)
There has not been parking on the site since any construction began the entire site is scrapped and simply dirt. So that is not a reason for the lack of digging for the foundations of taller towers.g:

Oh wait nvm I see what you’re saying lol

Streamliner Sep 6, 2019 3:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Will O' Wisp (Post 8679176)
Well this has been an interesting journey.

Liberty's website is very bare bones, and doesn't contain a single completed project. Which is very, very odd because they claim to have been founded in 1976.

Something wasn't adding up so looked more into Mark Schmidt, the CEO, CFO, and secretary of Liberty National. And that's when this legal settlement showed up. Turns out a Mr. Mark Schmidt was previously CEO of Wilmark Communities, which got into serious trouble last year for falsely withholding renter's security deposits and laying bogus charges on anyone who moved out.

With the info I already had I managed to find at least one article which confirms Mark Schmidt of Liberty National and Mark Schmidt of Wilmark Communities are the same person. Looks like after all that controversy Schmidt decided a name change was in order. According to the U-T article, Wilmark Communities built 8 apartment complexes in San Diego, and I've found at least one other in Florida, so Liberty National (nee Wilmark) is indeed a legit developer. But what I haven't been able to find is any evidence they've ever constructed a high rise project before.

Excellent sleuthing skills! I won't hold my breath on this project for now.

staplesla Sep 6, 2019 10:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Will O' Wisp (Post 8679176)
Well this has been an interesting journey.

Liberty's website is very bare bones, and doesn't contain a single completed project. Which is very, very odd because they claim to have been founded in 1976.

Something wasn't adding up so looked more into Mark Schmidt, the CEO, CFO, and secretary of Liberty National. And that's when this legal settlement showed up. Turns out a Mr. Mark Schmidt was previously CEO of Wilmark Communities, which got into serious trouble last year for falsely withholding renter's security deposits and laying bogus charges on anyone who moved out.

With the info I already had I managed to find at least one article which confirms Mark Schmidt of Liberty National and Mark Schmidt of Wilmark Communities are the same person. Looks like after all that controversy Schmidt decided a name change was in order. According to the U-T article, Wilmark Communities built 8 apartment complexes in San Diego, and I've found at least one other in Florida, so Liberty National (nee Wilmark) is indeed a legit developer. But what I haven't been able to find is any evidence they've ever constructed a high rise project before.

They seem pretty shady.

https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/...ing-mobsters/#

spoonman Sep 7, 2019 3:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mello (Post 8679041)
There has not been parking on the site since any construction began the entire site is scrapped and simply dirt. So that is not a reason for the lack of digging for the foundations of taller towers.

Nv 2897: Regarding Pacific Gate's semi twin I posted a couple of months ago that I called BOSA and they said there are no plans to start on that tower that they are still working on selling Savina, etc. They told me that Nat Bosa thinks Manchester Development will add value to the Pac Gate Twin project and that he wants to wait until it is farther along to begin construction on his project... So looks like this one will be a while and not break ground before recession.

Liberty National : Does anyone know anything about this company in the article Hugo listed they are also the developer for 1st and Beech and many other towers... They sound like big timers but have they actually gotten anything significant built in SD or California? :shrug:

Seriously man. Give the recession talk a rest, please.

mello Sep 7, 2019 8:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spoonman (Post 8680229)
Seriously man. Give the recession talk a rest, please.

Ok Spoon, I will just say the only reason I reference it is because we are all trying to speculate about what will realistically be built in downtown in this cycle. We have what 8 or 9 significant towers that are approved now and no shovels in the ground. So I think an important part of trying to figure out how our skyline will be transformed in next 3 years are economic cycles. Anyhow I won't mention it anymore if it is bothering people. PM me if you have any questions. I love my hometown and I want to see all these towers built. I guess I just get worried that many of them won't. :cheers:


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