Toll Brothers Milano/The Lindley
 

The site at 445 West Ash has covered walkways in place on Ash and A Streets as of today. More significant construction fencing on the other sides.

https://i.imgur.com/Rlffjn2.jpeg

Thanks for visiting, Atlas! The site you saw is the project formerly known as Manchester Pacific Gateway. It's currently under development as IQHQ's RaDD, https://iqhqreit.com/project/radd/.

Manchester Financial retained one section of the site which they're calling the One Broadway Hotel & Plaza as of today. https://www.manchesterpacificgateway.com/about.html

For anyone interested in seeing the construction up close, walk over to the Navy building and peer over the railings. The view isn't bad!

https://i.imgur.com/0FEleFl.jpeg

Seaport Village
 

Gafcon is still Tweeting about Seaport San Diego as of November, https://twitter.com/Gafcon_Inc/statu...Csof68lcQoAAAA, and their website loads with a giant "Coming in 2022 Revised Project Proposal" banner. https://seaportsandiegoca.com

While we wait for something to happen there, the Port has done a good job sprucing the site up and changing over vendors. It's a noticeable improvement from when they took over operations in 2018.

Has there ever been an effort made to get a taller than 500' height zone in the part of downtown farthest from the Lindbergh flight path, maybe in the ballpark/East Village area on the south side near the waterfront? Of course the FAA would have to agree. A 600-650' zone might possibly work out in that area.

I saw some renderings for Tailgate Park a few months back that seemed to show some very tall towers, possibly reaching over 500 ft. Not too sure though, just from the perception in the rendering thats what it looks like: https://ewscripps.brightspotcdn.com/...operties-1.jpg

Unfortunately, this plan was not selected for Tailgate Park Redevelopment.

Yeah, that project was iced in favor of the Padres proposal, which isn't as good. The Padres proposal is underwater from what I understand, so they might have to restart that RFP process.

I do know there is a developer looking into developing a tower marginally above the height limit (50-75ft), but it's very preliminary right now.

Ooh, is there any more info on this?

Time is running out, Padres will have to start from square one if deal isn't finalized with city by end of this month. IIRC talks got delayed because the city couldn't send geotechnical analysts to site because site was used as COVID vaccine site.

I don't know how much demand there is for office space in the age of permanent remote work. BUT I hope I'm wrong. If so, Downtown, UTC, and Mission Valley really need more office TOD. Too much proposed San Diego TOD is residential, and office TOD generates much more transit trips per square feet than residential TOD does.

The building on the right looks to be at least 50 floors, so in all likelihood it would probably be at least 550-600' tall, possibly more.

https://www.sandag.org/uploads/proje..._577_25540.pdf

This 2006 community plan for DT San Diego had some pretty cool renderings of what downtown might look like in 2030 under current policies. Of course, not everything panned out/has yet panned out in real life, but still an interesting visualization of San Diego's skyline. San Diego's current skyline already gives me the vibe of a sunnier, warmer, and southern version of Vancouver, and this plan's visuals reinforces that.

Only problem is, Metro Vancouver population is growing at approx. 2x the rate of San Diego County, so it'll take an eternity for Downtown San Diego to fill out its parking craters due to slow and declining rates of population growth.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Downtown Vancouver doesn't seem to have any height restrictions from any nearby airports. Nor does Metrotown, Burnaby, where Metro Vancouver's tallest building is being built.

My hunch is that sure, in theory Downtown San Diego could have a ton of < 500' towers instead of a few 800' towers. But if a developer wants to build 3 million sq feet of office space, it's probably going to be much cheaper to build it in one 1000' tower with one unified foundation rather than two or three 500' towers, each with their separate foundations. So in practice, due to this extra expense, developers just don't even build 1 million sq feet office space in three 500' towers.

Why is San Diego (and California) growing much more slowly than Vancouver (and Canada) when Canada also has the high taxes and high cost of living as California and far worse weather, to boot?

Here's a theory: Canada is its own country. You might think taxes, cost of living is too high and want to move to the US, but not when it takes years of hassle to immigrate to the US.

California is NOT its own country. If you think taxes and cost of living are too high, you can pack up and leave any time you want to Arizona, Nevada, or Texas, no immigration hassle necessary.

The tower going up on Ash and Front is starting to have an impact on the skyline. It's visible from the 5 southbound lanes.

The two tallest in downtown Vancouver are under 700 feet (Shangri La the tallest). There must be some kind of municipal height limit going on, since Vancouver could probably support several 700 or 800 footers, perhaps a supertall. The tallest buildings in the area are in the burbs, maybe Burnaby.

I don't think we need a 1000 footer in SD. I'd settle for several 550-600 footers and maybe a couple of 600-700 footers just to relieve the "tabletop" skyline. But that will be up to the FAA and city. I do think 550-700 footers could be OK in the portion of downtown farthest from the flight path, the southern part of East Village near the bay, perhaps including the ballpark area.

How tall will it be, and how many floors?

The project between Union & Front St on W Ash is the Alexan Little Italy apartment building. According to the proposed plans, it should top out around 407 feet with 36 floors.

For relative height, the Luma building two blocks down is about 260-270 feet tall.

People Movers >> Trolley to the Airport!
 

Here's a commentary I wrote:

The Driverless Alternative to an Airport Trolley Extension

Alex Wong

Voice of San Diego

January 14, 2022

https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/topi...ley-extension/

"As a transit enthusiast who often flies from Oklahoma City to visit family in San Diego, I believe a trolley extension is ill-suited to serve San Diego International Airport, whose passenger load will surge from 25 million in 2019 to 40 million by 2043.

San Diego needs a more frequent, high-capacity airport rail link..."

Additional Points:

1. Imagine this: You spent about $1.6 billion to build the airport trolley at for 15 minute frequencies. Demand skyrockets. You want to increase frequencies to 7.5 minutes. That requires double tracking, which takes years of construction, disruption to existing trolley lines and roads, and finding new drivers, possibly during a driver shortage.

2. Now imagine this: You spent $1.3 billion to build a automated people mover (APM) from the airport to Middletown trolley station. You initially run the APM every 5 minutes. Demand skyrockets. You want to increase frequencies to 2 minutes. Easy. Just get a couple more trains. No new drivers, no double-tracking, no additional grade separation, etc. Because APMs are built from the start to run trains up to every 2 minutes and are driverless.

3. "Why do you hate the airport trolley? So if your APM idea doesn't win, you'd rather have no rail to the airport than a trolley to the airport?" I didn't say that. An airport trolley is better than no train to the airport. But better than nothing isn't the best, and I want the best, I want an APM.

4. "But an APM will need a brand new depot!" Sure, but not wanting to build a new depot for an APM is not an excuse for serving the airport with poor 15 minute headways.

5. "But the Airport Trolley will have a brand recognition that an APM won't have!" Airport travelers don't care whether the train is red or green, has steel wheels or rubber tires, or is called a trolley or a people mover. What they want is plenty of room to store luggage and short waiting times that the APM provides.

6. "APMs are all gadgetbahns, like the Oakland Airport People Mover!" That's just cherry-picking the worst APM technology available, the cable liner. Most other airports use a far better technology like the Mitsubishi Crystal Mover or Bombardier Innovia.

Another crane is up at RaDD.

https://i.imgur.com/HxJ7i3r.jpeg

Nice read. You made a good case for an automated people mover system at the airport.

It's nice to see this project moving along now. What has it been, 4 years to get to this point where multiple structures are about to go vertical?