East Village IS seeing a lot of growth and renewal. And it's true that Target is closing a bunch of it's tiny urban stores... it's a failed model that they are scrapping. Organized shoplifting (not homeless people, btw) is indeed a problem in general, but Target wouldn't be the first company to try to justify their failings or shady motivations (Starbucks) on homeless people / crime.

I was just out in Chicago this past weekend for the Chicago Marathon, and despite all the negative news you hear in the media about the Chi-town, I was impressed by how clean the whole city was. Running a marathon through it and spending a few extra days gave me some time to really get a good feel for it.

The pros:
- Very little homeless, didn't see any at public transit spots or under bridges.
- Clean streets, well paved, good lighting at night, beautiful landscaping
- Pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods, wide sidewalks everywhere
- Great public transit - comes frequently and takes you wherever you need to go.
- LOTS of new development on the north side of downtown where we stayed

Cons:
- Chicago can't compete with the natural beauty & weather of San Diego
- Crime still exists, but seems to be very concentrated in particular neighborhoods from my experience. Downtown & surrounding areas felt very safe.

Downtown San Diego has UNLIMITED potential to grow if you alleviate homelessness and ensure public safety. (1) Got the best weather in the country, (2) we're among top desirable cities for young professionals, and (3) remote work means anyone can live and work in San Diego. In today's day and age, the employee is determining where the employer should set up shop. If people heavily prefer to live in San Diego, we will see more employers move here. We have a strong educational base here (SDSU, UCSD, USD + more) to support more businesses and industry growth.

I think San Diego has some real issues with the homeless (& drug) crisis that need to be properly handled if we are to see downtown continue to excel. The feedback I receive from people I know living downtown is very similar - something along the lines of "it's fun... BUT there are lots of homeless and it's dirty." Even if you live in Little Italy, the second you go to cross the 5 freeway or head south toward C street, you're greeted with lines of homeless tents. I would rather live downtown, but I live in Pacific Beach for this reason... wouldn't want my GF walking at night downtown. I think you're going to see vacancy rates start to rise in the coming months due to the homeless issue.

World-class downtowns like Chicago show us that it doesn't have to be this way. You can claim the weather aiding the homeless issue, but if you go to Miami (which is attracting young adults in droves) you'll see they also have a much cleaner downtown and fewer homeless. If we fix the homeless issue, I believe San Diego can compete head-to-head with the likes of Miami, Austin, and other top growth markets in attracting new investment and residents. Provide a clean, safe, downtown for people to work, live and play, and you'll see downtown San Diego truly boom.

I think we are at a fork in the road of either worsening homelessness and stagnating development or alleviating homelessness and allowing the city to boom.

Thought it'd be worth striking conversation, its been quiet on the forum.

Very good points

San Diego is an interesting place. Its easily the most overlooked urban area in the country (San Antonio, TX is a distant second).. I was born there and even I forget it exists. Having lived all over the US, i can say that regarding cities in California: Sacramento, Fresno, Bakersfield, Oxnard, and Eureka have come up more in random conversaton than San Diego. (Even places like Eugene and Salem, OR and Redmond, WA have a higher profile). I can definitively say that the only thing most americans know about San Diego is "Anchorman" and "big zoo". Also nuclear submarines and tijuana.

Its not its fault, of course; its overshadowed on two different levels: on the state level AND WITHIN Southern California. If SD had been in its own state for the last 60 years i think it would have 3x its current population and a reputation that competes with Phoenix, Austin, or Seattle (or Portland.. Portland has the opposite problem, imo; the most psychotically overrated city in the US). Also, the stupid airport certainly doesnt help. A non-trivial skyline would put SD on the map very quickly.

Ironically, I would say Chicago, which you just mentioned, is easily America's most underrated city, because for some reason it became a cultural punching bag to be used as an example of violence, despite having never come anywhere close to the top of the list. St. Louis (where i lived for 10 years) has literally double the violence. Oakland has 40% more. Stockton (where i lived for 2 years.. clearly im not very good at picking locations) has 20% more. On the whole, Chicago has about as much violence as Nashvlle or Houston. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._by_crime_rate

But if not for this weird thing against Chicago, San Diego would be top of the list as most underrated city

Like you said, the potential of SD is pretty incredible.. its a bit more politically conservative than the other big two california urban areas, so will potentially be more effective in addressing its issues. And as bad as those issues may be, SD hasnt had its reputation ruined by them yet. The silver lining to being overshadowed by LA and SF is that they also overshadow SD in negative stereotypes. I dont think most people in the US would ever think of SD when they think of homelessness. SF and LA (and Portland and Seattle) totally steal the show there.

I could easily see SD being "discovered" soon, especially now that LA seems to have finally blinked in the last census.. some sort of deep structural shift is going on up there and LA may be about to see a period of economic and population decline for the first time in its history.

Just counted up the amount of apartments currently under construction in downtown out of boredom: 3,128. Out of that total, 374 are affordable.

Not bad.

I think Walgreens also tried to justify closures on crime but later it turned out they just weren't doing well.

I wish more people outside of this thread would talk about how much of an issue our airport is. First, it’s small. Been the busiest one-runway airport in the country for years (just now got overtaken by Phoenix Goodyear actually). And we all know about the plateauing effect of its height limit on downtown. Our skyline would probably resemble something closer to SF by now if we had relocated the airport when we had the chance.

But I actually think the biggest negative effect of the airport location is the land it sits on. We’re basically wasting 663 acres of prime developable land right in the center of the city. For context, downtown as a whole is 1450 acres. If the airport were moved, we would open up land the size of 2-3 east villages for high density development. This would do wonders for the affordable housing crisis and eventually give us one of the most beautiful waterfront skylines in the country. Such a shame. Maybe in a a hundred years they’ll put the airport issue up to vote again

I think the Phoenix Goodyear record is a bit of a stretch. It has no commercial flights, and is busy because it's used for general aviation/flight schools.

Given the airport ship sailed a good while back, there's nothing to do but look forward and work with what there is right now by improving the overall experience and update, which is being done incrementally.

And then the whole "tall skyline" argument is so tired and worn out. Yeah, SAN is a major limiting factor to overall height, but that only looks so good on a postcard or backdrop and doesn't tell a whole story at all.

Even then, the skyline around Petco isn't restricted by SAN to 500 feet, that's the city's doing.

All those grand renderings and a decade of discussion (at least) for this premier spot in the skyline and like you said, it's barely visible in the skyline.

Homelessness is hurting business downtown. I talked to a business owner who moved from 8th Ave to another part of San Diego because he received no foot traffic anymore because customers did not want to wade through tents with peoples belongings strewn all over the sidewalk to go there.

I also attended a conference recently with people from out of town and out of the country, and they were hesitant to leave the hotel to go to restaurants etc downtown because of all the homeless. Someone from India even said it’s looking worse than Mumbai. This isn’t good for our city. I sympathize with people who are on the street through no fault of their own (layoffs, medical/mental problems, etc) and there is no easy solution. As a more than decade long resident of East Village, my view is the quality of life has gone down, not up. Nothing significant has been built here in the last decade that benefits residents. We’ve been taunted with tales of various larger retail coming to the area for more than a decade, and it never materializes. Even Horton plaza is gone which at least was in walking distance. It seems like the only options downtown are either geared towards short term visitors (ballgame goers, conventions, etc) or homeless encampments. I honestly don’t know why anyone would want to live down here anymore. I’m trying to leave but it’s going to take awhile because housing is so expensive. I don’t mean to add a ton of negativity to this board, but I really hope the city planners do something to change the trajectory. I was so excited when I first moved downtown about 15 years ago. There was so much energy and excitement for the potential. But very little of that materialized, and now it’s a depressing collection of fleeting/failing businesses and urine soaked sidewalks. It’s extremely depressing and a huge missed opportunity.

Agree but it’s useless to complain now. The airport is spending billions on the new terminal 1, so there will be no serious discussion about moving it probably for the next 20 years or so (or longer). The only thing that could change that would be a major aviation disaster linked to the poor location which I of course hope never happens, or if the single runway actually starts getting backed-up causing people on a large scale to complain. The runway is something that confuses me. I’ve been hearing for years that we couldn’t sustain the airport with the current one/short runway, in fact I thought it was supposed to be at capacity by now. Not sure how many more years that runway could be sufficient assuming SD sees exponential passenger growth?

Homelessness is going to take a long time to untangle, for sure.
But in the short term the city could do a lot more to address the overall cleanliness of downtown.
I'm frequently shocked at just how filthy our core is. It's very common to see windblown trash, piles of soiled clothes, food waste, Starbucks cups, dog/human waste.. Frankly, it's embarrassing, and I don't understand why the city doesn't do more to clean up the core.

Also roaches. I don’t remember ever seeing roaches downtown a decade ago, I’m sure they existed but not in the numbers we have today. It’s pretty much a given I will see many large ones crawling around on the sidewalk anytime I walk around EV at night.

Regarding Lindbergh reaching capacity, what is the feasibility of all cargo activity being shifted to Brown Field? That would take a partial load off of SAN if things got too congested. Brown Field has a long run way and plenty of room to expand facilities. I wonder what % of takeoffs/landings are UPS, FedEx, and DHL?

Must not have been here long. LESS ROACHES nowadays.

There was a serious push for this in the early 2000s, to the point of discussions with reps from FedEx and engineering plans being drawn up.

As it stands, Brown Field's runway is only 8000' long, too short for any serious cargo flights. The airport would acquire the junkyards to the west and east and extend the runway up to 11,000'.

The problem came up with the ILS system, which lets aircraft land in bad weather. The airspace requirements for these things are huge, it forms a cone centered on the runway, 9 1/2 miles long and 3 1/4 miles wide at the far end. The cone slopes upward at 34:1, which puts a height limit of about 1500' at the far end. You also have to keep other aircraft out of the cone entirely, which will come up in a minute.

Otay mountain is 6-ish miles from Brown and over 3000' feet tall, so an ILS approach from the east is out of the question. It's actually so tall and so close most aircraft can't safely descend fast enough to reach Brown after flying over it, which leads most to coming from the west and doing a tight 180 right before landing, not the sort of thing you'd really like seeing a loaded cargo plane do (although I've seen a few do it, and let me tell you it's quite a sight).

That was figured out at the time, so the plans done up had the ILS pointing in the other direction. But that ran into the issue of NAS Imperial Beach, which is about 6 miles away to the west. You'd basically have to shut down the airbase every time a cargo plane landed. Naturally, the Navy wasn't very interested in shutting down "the busiest military airport in the nation" and the "the busiest helicopter airport in the world". This being San Diego the military is king, so that idea was pretty much dead.

Without an ILS insurance and logistics became insurmountable issues for the major cargo carriers. There is a current project to revamp Brown Field which would include some cargo elements, but nothing with FexEx, UPS or the like.

Anyway, it wouldn't actually do that much. Cargo is a lot more flexible than pax in terms of scheduling, they're very willing to be shifted around towards the least busy times, including landing at 3am (FYI the curfew only applies to takeoffs and passenger flights). Last study I saw showed removing all cargo from Lindbergh would only gain you a handful of percentage points in terms of capacity.

Thanks for the insights as always. Assuming you're either in or at least in the know with SDCRAA, I have a sort of dumb question since I think everyone probably knows the answer: ever since the ballot measure for Miramar failed years ago and the implementation of the airport master plan buildout with the green build, taxiways, tank farm and fueling system, and new t1, is any site selection talk among management or board members basically nonexistent since the focus has shifted to building out Lindbergh for the foreseeable future?

At the rate things are going, it seems like there is a greater chance of advances in aircraft technology allowing for greater capacity and adjusting the height limit downtown than relocating, but planes haven't physically changed that much for a long while...

Zip. Zitch. Zero. Less than zero. The Authority actively discourages discussion about airport relocation, publicly and privately. There's some severe institutional scarring after spending 60 years watching the airport degrade from lack of attention/funding, because "it will just be replaced in a few years".

Honestly, I think we gave up in the 90s, after the joint US-Mexico Twinports proposal collapsed in the midst of the War on Drugs and it became clear Miramar wasn't going to be closed by BRAC.

The last real study I saw was from the late 90s, looked at every scrap of land in the County west of the coastal range. The only rules were you couldn't interfere with the military, couldn't require moving more than 3 million tons of earth, and would relocate more than 30,000 people.

Just for comparison on those last two points, that's a similar amount of earthmoving and relocation as it takes to build major freeways and the like. And we still couldn't find a suitable spot.

The 2006 referendum was more about getting the Airport out from under the Port, which had been using it as a piggybank for decades, and putting an end to the public debate over relocation so we could finally stop neglecting the airport we have. Very few people at the newly formed Authority expected it to pass.

It's not exactly the aircraft, it's the navigation systems. These have been upgraded in recent years with GPS technology. I suppose we might see some progress out of that eventually, but more in the sense of "maybe in 20-30 years something will happen".

Airport
 

Honestly; enough about the airport and its effects on our skyline!

I’ve lived downtown over 15 years and there’s more nowadays. This was confirmed by the exterminator that services our building as well, he’s not only seen an increase in American roaches but also German roaches in San Diego.

NO need to point out Chicago. Just look at San Jose to the north: very few to no homeless downtown and no drug dealing due to its mayor's tough stance on those issues. Downtown feels safer, cleaner and more vibrant than in the last few years. It just takes political will to alleviate these problems. Now, Downtown SJ is fantastic and the recent researches show great recovery. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=..._&opi=89978449 *from NBC 11 SJ.

Looking forward to it!

Wow sounds like Hillcrest is going to be the new Hollywood lol. Maybe all the old boomers who constantly battled density in HC have thrown in the towel.

Does anybody know what's going up on Home Ave and Gateway Dr I think?

Giant hole in the ground

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...pi=89978449Not so fast, SD

this is measuring recovery in foot traffic downtown. you have to keep in mind that our downtown is largely residential, meaning much of that foot traffic is locals at home, which is why our downtown appeared to "recover" faster from covid. as companies ramped up return to office, foot traffic declined as fewer people downtown were working from home. additionally, the period measured was march through mid-june 2023. spring 2023 was one of the coldest, rainest springs in recent memory. san diegans don't go outside in cold and rain.

Do you guys think Peter Seidler's death will affect the Padres masssive development on the parking lot behind Petco? I wonder if it is too late for Stan Kroenke to do an arena there instead if the Padres are no longer interested in moving forward with those residential towers. I would much prefer a nice World Class arena there than in the Midway District. I haven't heard any updates on this project has anyone else? Maybe the higher interest rates are hurting its chances. :shrug:

Saw a permit online for twin 40-story towers with a 23 story along with it in UTC just south of Costa Verde.

https://aca-prod.accela.com/SANDIEGO...howInspection=

See "More Details" and then "Application Information".

Kind of surprised by the height. I thought UTC was more impacted by MCAS Miramar. Anyone have any news or thoughts on this?

I just saw this on Twitter and came here to see if anyone had additional info. I don't have any additional information, but it's pretty far south of the Miramar flight paths (which tend to veer north toward Sorrento Valley). I imagine a huge outcry from neighbors, which are mostly low-rise apartments/condos. This would be a huge project, and I hope to see it push through unscathed. We need more of these in UTC.

Miramar already has massive buffer zones so from a technical perspective it won't be much of a problem. What's harder to say is how the Marines will view the project, if they throw their weight around they could potentially make it an issue.

MCAS Miramar airspace diagram

MCAS Miramar Accident Potential Zones

Big Things coming for Bankers Hill!
 

I toured 525 Olive the other day. Amazing building and views. Better be for $6200 2 bedrooms. Anyway while looking at the view to the North in a 19th floor unit the leasing agent said Greystar is going to do another building maybe a bit taller than 525 Olive at 6th and Quince where the Donna Jean and Evolution restaurants are. I asked if it was a go and he said Greystar doesn't mess around and it will break ground soon.

He then said 6th and Upas which is already being demolished and digging starting will be 15 to 17 floors :cheers:

So some more great height coming to that strip. I'm surprised we haven't heard about the big tower at 6th and Quince.

Also got project at 1st and beech (22 stories) that should break ground soon.

The Union-Tribune just posted a rendering of the proposed Topgolf driving range next to Harbor Island/SAN.

https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/d...aerialview.jpg

Topgolf, Port of San Diego near agreement on lease terms for flagship venue on San Diego Bay
JENNIFER VAN GROVE
DEC. 1, 2023
Link to article

Before seeing the renders I was initially on board with the project, but now I'm not so sure. It feels very suburban, with all the surface parking. Views of the waterfront/skyline would be blocked by the netting somewhat, so views from the facility would be hard to see, which defeats the purpose of the location in my opinion.

I like the idea of entertainment/recreation activities at the waterfront, and I know it would be popular amongst the convention/business crowd. But it kind of walls off the bay in a way I'm not a fan of.

That is absolutely disgusting.

Nets aren't walls and it it'll bring more people to the bay. Harbor Island is dead anyway. Your looking at it from a birds eye view. Those nets don't block a view. No one driving on Harbor can see the water. Harbor dr is non stop airport traffic anyway.

While I agree with you, there were a few aspects that ended up swaying the Port into agreeing to this after some initial hesitation. Topgolf really pulled out all the stops to get to yes.

Here's their original proposal:

https://media.nbcsandiego.com/2022/0...5&h=661&crop=1

So, two midrise hotels plus the Topgolf facility. When the Port showed some hesitation, Topgolf agreed to move the facility back (so that there would be midrise hotels on either side of it), and then agreed to lease terms that would have them demolish their facility and replace it with a hotel after 30 years.

Plus they agreed to pay something like $2 million a year in rent, which will pretty much pay for that fancy park on the east side of Liberator Way.

That looks gross, but I know the port needs new revenue sources, so I get it.

Anyone tracking NAVWAR redevelopment? I believe their preferred proposal will be announced this month or soon.

Also, any fun projects folks are aware of or tracking? I found this interesting fantasy project in National City the other day:

https://theregistrysocal.com/1-44-ac...sted-for-19mm/

Looks like the SDSU Stadium in Mission Valley is finally getting some neighbors.
https://newscenter.sdsu.edu/sdsu_new...aspx?sid=79387

It has been years since the vote on the SDSU expansion happened and they haven't finished all those parks they promised or built anything but the stadium. Meanwhile UCSD is exploding with cranes and towers looking like a whole new city is being built.... SDSU is a joke.

2024 is almost here and ground hasn't been broken on Manchesters Fairmount Hotel in the bay, anyone heard what the deal is with this project?

I heard Doug Manchester lost a ton of money during COVID, had to sell off most of Pacific Gateway just to make up part of his losses. So he isn't going to be putting in very much cash himself, needs others to provide funding like Fairmount.

But the tourism market is still a bit shaky in SD, plus higher interest rates, means people aren't quite as eager to start groundbreaking new hotels.

Still moving forward I think, just a bit slow.

The River park is mostly complete and they just had their soft opening on Saturday (12/9). River Park at SDSU Mission Valley Ready for Public After Soft Opening

I wonder how Manchester managed to lose money during Covid most wealthy people did great with all the trillions the Fed pumped in to the system that boosted their stock and property portfolios? Also can you elaborate on the tourism market being shaky? I thought San Diego is kind the go to West Coast destination for many Americans as the image of LA and Bay Area is terrible with crime, homeless, traffic, dirty etc.

Biotech has been booming and now with Israel and Ukraine the War Machine economy is surely humming on all cylinders in SD County so business travel should be solid.

Honestly couldn't tell you, that's just what I've heard.

So we're in a bit of a weird area at the moment. San Diego is a major tourist hotspot. In fact, we recently posted our best year ever in terms of tourist $$$ spent.

But hotel occupancy has remained a bit below pre-pandemic levels. One of the unique things about the San Diego tourist market is that it's much more local than many other areas. San Diego pulls in a great number of people from LA, Las Vegas, and Phoenix, people who drive in for a weekend stay before going home.

That was a lifesaver during COVID, with air travel largely shut down San Diego was one of the only places in the country still hosting any sort of tourism, and its lead to a much more rapid recovery overall. But that masks somewhat more difficult situation international travelers and people from the East Coast, who really support the weekday hotel market. This is true pretty much everywhere in CA rn atm.

But, good news is this has been a very good year and we've all but recovered. It's just taking a bit of time, and with the overall difficult situation with financing atm it hasn't been encouraging anyone to beat down the doors for new hotel developments.

Citizen M Hotel-7th and Market
 

I drove by yesterday and noticed that they have installed the green construction fencing around the site and 7th and Market and that some trucks were onsite. Looks like this one is about to start.

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com...d-ritz-carlton

this is the parking lot next to market street animal hospital, right? the lot had 2 free spaces available for vet patients. i guess i'll have to pay for parking when going to the vet now.

Well, that settles it. We've got to get this shut down :ahhh:

San Diego’s Midway District can get taller after judge rejects latest lawsuit

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com...-final-lawsuit


Midway Rising’s sports arena project evolves with start of environmental review
process
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com...review-process

Well this is interesting, tower component to Campus at Horton is incoming.

Stockdale Adds Residential to Campus at Horton MXU
https://www.connectcre.com/wp-conten...l-Partners.jpg
https://www.connectcre.com/stories/s...at-horton-mxu/

I guess I hadn't been following the Horton project because I didn't realize adding residential towers was on the table. But it's a great idea. That project was always a bit too midrise for me to get too excited about. It definitely needs a couple towers