IMO, I think this idea is ridiculous.
If the route to the airport had some major elevation gains... Then maybe. But as it is, it's just a tacky dodge to avoid having to do some real civic planning. The city needs to find a way to get the trolley to the airport.

Theres already a trolly stop less than a quarter mile from the runway, thats closer than most cities. Connect the Washington st stop and the rental car center to the terminal via a people mover not an entirely new trolly line. I like the gondola idea to Balboa Park, Coronado Island, maybe even to Pacific Beach from the new Balboa trolly stop. I think it's a great way to move tourist traffic. Seems like a cheap alternative, less of an eyesore, and offers great views.

The route to the airport is completely and totally flat, but an aerial tram would sidestep the primary problem with getting the trolley directly to the airport terminals: crossing the freight train rail-line between the blue line and the waterfront. You can't run directly across it, since heavy rail and light rail can't share the same right of way safely, and you can't shut the line down (even temporarily for construction) since that would cut off the port and the navy base's primary means of transporting goods. So the only option is to build a grade separated crossing, which would almost assuredly be below grade, while thousands of tons of freight pass overhead every night. It's actually completely possible from an engineering standpoint, similar projects have been done elsewhere, but the additional cost completely screws up the value proposition. If SANDAG had the billion dollars it'd take just laying around they'd build a trolley line from Downtown to North Park or from PB to the 15 instead.

There are still a ton of problems with an aerial tram though. It's a bright idea, but there's a lot more issues with this than just construction cost.

edit: Found the feasibility study itself, it self acknowledges that it doesn't fully cover potential community and environmental concerns.

Does anyone know what will be developed at the Marina Inn suites and the lot behind it because i saw that both lots are fenced off for both and on yelp and google reviews it says that it Marina Inn is closed
https://i.imgur.com/TGceJdM.png
https://i.imgur.com/aNrgHKI.jpg

Imagery Credit to Google Maps

Let me tell you, I love https://sandiego.urbdezine.com/development-map/ for all those "what the heck is going up on that lot" moments. But to answer your question, it's a brand new set of luxury apartments

^ Ok Thank you lol. I do use the development map it just doesn't say anything for the marina inn.

So all I could find on this is that the property was sold twice in the last year:

https://www.sdbj.com/news/2017/oct/0...own-hotel-pur/

https://www.sdbj.com/news/2018/jun/27/little-italy-property-sold-121m/

Will likely be redeveloped by the new owners. No plans available yet (that I can find).

^ Thank you!

Wait the construction at 11th and Market is a 36 floor tower?!

Does anybody know if that's going up first or the 6 story towers?

Here's some fun (semi-recent) news for the thread!

-Lindburgh's Terminal 1 development timeline was thrown into disarray after the port, the city, and SANDAG threw a fit over the traffic impacts of the EIR. Essentially this is a fight over who has to pay, with the outside agencies arguing that since the airport is causing the traffic it should have to fund the necessary road improvements and the airport replying that longstanding federal regulations that forbid airport funds from being used for off-property projects (airports are considered national assets and receive federal funding, so the FAA seeks to avoid revenues diversion and underfunding crises like the one the NYC Subway is currently experiencing).

Never having done so in the past, the FAA is unlikely to budge on the issue and since the traffic so going to come regardless of if the new terminal is built or not a CEQA battle is probably a lost cause for the airport's opponents. But the airport will have to perform some due diligence by getting a formal letter from the FAA stating precisely what it can and cannot fund off airport (hint: it's not a lot) and perform a cost/benefit study on a peoplemover from the terminals to the nearest trolley station (given there's already a free shuttle that drops people off across the street, a $600 mil project probably won't be worth it but we'll see). From what I've heard it'll be 6 months to a year added to all the project timelines.




-The City Council is considering amending how historic districts are proposed and approved. This one has been roughly a year in the making, but has received surprisingly little press. In 2017 as part of the overall effort the update community plans citywide the city completed the first real citywide survey of historic resources (think: a database of when every building in the city was built). The Historic Resources Board, a city department in charge of proposing and approving new historic districts, got ahold of this survey and promptly began a campaign to designate as many new districts as possible (a lot of which just happen to be sections of single family housing threatened by new multifamily development). Note I said in charge of both proposing and approving new historic districts, the division does require any form of approval from the planning department or even effected property owners to designate a new historic district, which once implemented requires a lengthy and expensive permitting process just to conduct simple renovations like replacing window frames or doors.

It all came to a head last September when the Board designated virtually all of South Park a historic district with virtually no notification to the effected homeowners, and when a few appealed to the City Council the CC discovered even they had very little authority to deny the Board if it had followed the extremely broad guidelines for designating a district. The CC was understandably miffed and ordered the Board to halt its campaign, freezing the designation of an extremely controversial historic district that would have prevented any redevelopment on Park Blvd north of Balboa (an area of mostly low rises along a future trolley line). The new rules would require much greater notification to property owners, hand final approval over the planning dept, and if the majority of effected property owner object would only allow the designation if the area represents an “exceptional important” historic resource.

Thanks for this! I'd been following the Airport case a little bit, but I like this background regarding the FAA's role. Regarding the off-site traffic issues, I really think that MTS and the Airport would really benefit from a well-funded outreach/,marketing campaign to help locals and tourists alike familiarize themselves with the existing transit options.

Redevelopment of the Us Bank Building.
UT Article: http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/...029-story.html
Before
https://i.imgur.com/AYe2xoC.png
After
https://i.imgur.com/W4hfSbl.jpg
Imagery Credit to San Diego Union Tribune and Google Maps

Quick Question why is it once you reach Ariel little Italy the high-rises in Sd seem to stop I know it has to do with FAA restrictions but I would imagine it would be a gradual height drop not going from 300ft to 40ft (Visual guess) or is it just a lack of high-rise development in the surrounding area, or the character of the neighborhood?
https://i.imgur.com/MWiLq1t.png
Credit to google maps for the images

Height limits set by the city. Look up 'Little Italy Sun Access Overlay'.

^Thank you!

There's a new update on the Seaport Village redo and it's looking pretty insane.

http://www.trbimg.com/img-5bdcbaf5/t...ge/750/750x422

http://www.trbimg.com/img-5bdcbbfc/t.../1550/1550x872

http://www.trbimg.com/img-5bdcbd77/t.../1550/1550x872

http://www.trbimg.com/img-5bdcbcc0/t.../1550/1550x872

http://www.trbimg.com/img-5bdcbb82/t...ge/750/750x422

You can read all the details here.

^I saw the changes and i was like WOAH! The spire looks pretty insane I wonder if the Park Row apartments will sue on this project

Well that spire sure would be iconic...

Did anyone read the article and notice that they said the spire would replace Ruocco Park? Ruocco Park is barely 6 years old and they are already planning on getting rid of it- I don't understand how the Seaport Village re-do planners can assume this is ok. Not to mention that privatizing public space is infuriating in itself...

And why isn't there a residential component? With the whole Seaport Village re-do, and Manchester Pacific Gateway's 8 blocks--it's going to be 10 blocks of hotels and commercial projects, with an office building or two. I can't believe there is no residential aspect to either of the two projects.

Just a couple notes:

-The spire isn't going to replace Rucco Park, it's going to be placed to the east where the shops of the current Seaport Village are today. The article doesn't state this explicitly, but implies it when it fails to list the spire in the list of things going in that area. The maps released as part of the board meeting make this clear though.

-The so called "Blue Campus" is directly replacing Rucco Park. This features an aquarium, a learning center (think the fleet science center in balboa park), and a startup incubator (essentially free office space for students/recent grads of UCSD). The area will be built by the developers but run by UCSD and Scripps, both non-profits. There will be fees to enter the learning center/aquarium, but they will only be based on the cost associated with running these facilities. This is basically the exact same way Balboa Park developed from a grassy hill outside of downtown into what it is today, and under most definitions after this development Rucco Park will still be considered a public space much like Balboa still is.

-There's currently sort of a glut of non-active public spaces on the downtown waterfront (ie grass fields), more than people are really interested in using. When I walked down by the waterfront last weekend I counted maybe a half dozen people in Rucco Park mid-day on a Saturday, which is pretty appalling tbh. In-between the Tuna Harbor park, the Embarcadero Marina parks, the County Admin building parks, the Lane Field park, and the under construction park right across the street to it as part of the MPG there is a huge amount of open space in the area (and there's about the be more with the in concept parks on the Navy Pier and the expansion of the County Admin Building park). An aquarium/learning center could educate and entertain hundreds in the same space, while people looking for a less active experience would have plenty of options just a short walk away.

-Under CA state law it would be illegal to build permanent residences at either the MPG or Seaport Village (or anywhere else south of W Harbor Dr and west of Pacific Hwy for that matter). From the 1920s-1960s the Navy dredged thousands of tons of mud out of the bay to make it deep enough for the latest warships, and they dumped a lot of the fill they pulled up around downtown to provide more land (along with building Harbor Island, Shelter Island, attaching North Island to Coronado, etc. The Navy did a massive amount of dredging). The legal terms are a bit complex, but essentially these days you're not allowed to build housing on that reclaimed land.