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spoonman Sep 5, 2018 5:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nv_2897 (Post 8303909)
Also does anyone know when this tower will break ground or is it a dead proposal
https://i.imgur.com/DEeFGFK.png

This project is very much alive and is the other "bookend" tower to Pacific Gate. Someone else may have more detail, but I would guess Bosa will build this one after the project on Broadway/6th[?].

mello Sep 5, 2018 9:24 PM

I tried calling BOSA and 800 Broadway Tower is for sale....
 
Concerning the Semi cousin to Pacific Gate BOSA is very tight lipped, when it was originally talked about in the UT in late 16 early 17 I believe the article said it was penciled in for groundbreaking in 2019. Spoonman: The Block project is rentals so that won't keep him from starting this one on water front. They probably want to make sure Savina is all sold out first or something then proceed on this one. BOSA is so rich he could just start building anytime (just googled networth 3 billion in late 2016).

Just got an email from Commercial Real Estate guy and the 41 floor 800 Broadway project is now for sale with full entitlements to build. I wonder if they market these projects to billionaires in Asia or Brazil lol.

Nv_2897 Sep 5, 2018 10:55 PM

Does anyone know when cranes will appear on the Manchester pacific gateway i know they still have to continue demolition on one last building

Nv_2897 Sep 6, 2018 12:01 AM

Ive noticed that in downtown San Diego there are so many buildings that are getting renovated which is surprising because i thought they would demolish them but hey if you can then why not

spoonman Sep 6, 2018 1:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mello (Post 8304633)
Concerning the Semi cousin to Pacific Gate BOSA is very tight lipped, when it was originally talked about in the UT in late 16 early 17 I believe the article said it was penciled in for groundbreaking in 2019. Spoonman: The Block project is rentals so that won't keep him from starting this one on water front. They probably want to make sure Savina is all sold out first or something then proceed on this one. BOSA is so rich he could just start building anytime (just googled networth 3 billion in late 2016).

Just got an email from Commercial Real Estate guy and the 41 floor 800 Broadway project is now for sale with full entitlements to build. I wonder if they market these projects to billionaires in Asia or Brazil lol.

Very interesting, Mello. Maybe we’ll see something happen with 1st&Island. That’s the only other large tower BOSA has that I’m aware of. Although I thought I remember that he acquired a parcel near Smart Corner. Anyone know?

Nv_2897 Sep 6, 2018 1:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spoonman (Post 8304881)
Very interesting, Mello. Maybe we’ll see something happen with 1st&Island. That’s the only other large tower BOSA has that I’m aware of. Although I thought I remember that he acquired a parcel near Smart Corner. Anyone know?

^I think bosa also owns the office depot site next to Pacific Gate

HurricaneHugo Sep 6, 2018 1:59 AM

What's rising on northside of Market St between 11th and 12th?

It's already above ground

Will O' Wisp Sep 6, 2018 3:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spoonman (Post 8302412)
Good points by everyone. For clarification, I never felt like SD wasn’t a good city. In fact, I’m quite a booster. What is frustrating is the continuous misses on large opportunities not only to improve the city and its image, but even to maintain the status quo. This is more of an issue of leadership than environmental, economic, or geographical reasons. It seems that the city’s leadership has failed to sell important ideas to the public, such as sensible density, new airport, finding a way to keep pro sports, doubling down on nightlife, etc. This is a great city and is both comparable and unique at the same time when compared to LA. However, it is the leadership that continues to stand still (or move backwards) when everyone else is moving forward.


The grass always looks oh so very greener my friend....

For a coastal Californian city, SD is reasonable well-managed and fairly development oriented. In SD the city government cheers on major projects, in LA no one really cares and in SF they fight you unless you bend over backwards for them. Everything in SEA is subject to the infamous "Seattle process", i.e. community meeting after community meeting until everyone is so sick of hearing about your project they finally approve it. It's honestly not a development culture I would choose to replicate, and it's scarring most of the companies you cite away (Boeing moved to Chicago in 2001, Amazon is halting its growth with HQ2, and Microsoft is HQed in Redmond rather than the city itself). One of SD's big advantages is actually that it's generally cheaper to build here than in most west coast cities. It certainly isn't Texas, but at the rate things are going Texas isn't going to stay "Texas" for very much longer.

It's always worth keeping in mind that local leaders are supposed to represent the current residents of their city, not the hypothetical citizens who might move there if radical changes to the economy were put in place. SD is growing about as fast as it can without damaging the industries most people living here currently rely on. You can't relocate the airport without jeopardizing the military's presence in SD, sports teams generally lose money for their city, and doubling down on nightlife might just lose us our tourism image (it also might not, but it won't kill us to take a wait and see approach before we end up with a reputation like we did back in the stingaree days).

Lemme tell ya, when you're actually in the thick of it things aren't cut and dry. There isn't a "press here to double your economy" button, every choice has risks. Domestic tourism and the military are safe bets, people are always going to love 80 deg weather and America is always going to need a presence in the pacific. That's a security many cities would envy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nv_2897 (Post 8304885)
^I think bosa also owns the office depot site next to Pacific Gate

Oh please be true. I want a 15-20 story tower there and a 10-15 story tower replacing the harborview apartments next door (juuust enough to peek over the new Navy building). That will give a really solid presence to the rightside skyline from the west.

SDCAL Sep 6, 2018 6:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by eburress (Post 8302879)
I couldn’t agree more. It’s an unfortunate irony that such a well-positioned city is so poorly managed, and it doesn’t help that much of its populace seems to prefer stagnation to growth. I’m constantly frustrated by what goes on here but despite the best efforts of the bunglers and NIMBYs, there are still occasional glimmers of hope.

Part of the problem is SD has the perfect storm of NIMBYs on both sides of the political spectrum. In other cities you have conservatives who are pro business, growth, and development, but here the conservatives are more old cranks who moved here from the Midwest, many are retired military, and they don’t want anyone else coming here to “spoil” their paradise. They believe “if you don’t build it, they won’t come” which we all know is faulty logic.

In other cities you have liberals who are all for density, and thinking big and bold with regards to iconic architecture and investing in infrastructure. But in SD, you have old crank liberals who actually think like the old crank conservatives I mentioned above when it comes to development. These aren’t the progressive minds fueling the tech industry in the Bay Area, or even the arts in other cities, these are dried-up NIMBYs who choose SD because they think LA, SF and NYC are too busy and fast for them.

Anyway, I don’t mean to be too negative or stereotype, but these are my honest impressions of SD compared to other large cities. I CHOOSE to live here because I think the positives outweighs the negatives, but I’m also not going to pretend SD is managed well like some posters are suggesting. I agree with you, it’s not. I mean look at all the corruption and problems with SANDAG, who can say that’s managed well. The politics here, and I stress again on BOTH SIDES, are ridiculous.

Here’s an example of what I mean: the people promoting the 4am booze curfew are Democrats in the legislature (the author of the bill is from the Bay Area). Democrats across the state support it. But one of our Democratic representatives, Lorena Gonzales, is apparently a large part of the reason SD isn’t included. She is actually quoted as saying “nothing good happens after midnight” when asked about her opposition to the bill. It sounds like she doesn’t even like having a 2am curfew. So she goes against her liberal colleagues and sides with the old cranks who want SD to be a sleepy bedroom community. It’s like SD has its own brand of old crank NIMBYism that straddles the Republicans and Democrats here.

SDCAL Sep 6, 2018 6:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Will O' Wisp (Post 8304991)
The grass always looks oh so very greener my friend....

For a coastal Californian city, SD is reasonable well-managed and fairly development oriented. In SD the city government cheers on major projects, in LA no one really cares and in SF they fight you unless you bend over backwards for them. Everything in SEA is subject to the infamous "Seattle process", i.e. community meeting after community meeting until everyone is so sick of hearing about your project they finally approve it. It's honestly not a development culture I would choose to replicate, and it's scarring most of the companies you cite away (Boeing moved to Chicago in 2001, Amazon is halting its growth with HQ2, and Microsoft is HQed in Redmond rather than the city itself). One of SD's big advantages is actually that it's generally cheaper to build here than in most west coast cities. It certainly isn't Texas, but at the rate things are going Texas isn't going to stay "Texas" for very much longer.

It's always worth keeping in mind that local leaders are supposed to represent the current residents of their city, not the hypothetical citizens who might move there if radical changes to the economy were put in place. SD is growing about as fast as it can without damaging the industries most people living here currently rely on. You can't relocate the airport without jeopardizing the military's presence in SD, sports teams generally lose money for their city, and doubling down on nightlife might just lose us our tourism image (it also might not, but it won't kill us to take a wait and see approach before we end up with a reputation like we did back in the stingaree days).

Lemme tell ya, when you're actually in the thick of it things aren't cut and dry. There isn't a "press here to double your economy" button, every choice has risks. Domestic tourism and the military are safe bets, people are always going to love 80 deg weather and America is always going to need a presence in the pacific. That's a security many cities would envy.


Oh please be true. I want a 15-20 story tower there and a 10-15 story tower replacing the harborview apartments next door (juuust enough to peek over the new Navy building). That will give a really solid presence to the rightside skyline from the west.

You make some good points but I have to disagree on two things:

1. I firmly believe that the decision to not move the airport to Miramar hurt our city tremendously. It was also hideously mismanaged. The city put out a half-assed vote that wasn’t even legally binding, it was more like a “feeler” to see what people thought, but it ended-up determining the fate of our airport for the rest of our lifetimes. That was not good management
2. I also submit to you as poor management of our city the agency of SANDAG. I won’t go into all the gory details here, but that agency has been mired in scandal and one only has to look at their decades of failed proposals and our poor transit network to see how incompetent they are. I don’t consider our region’s primary transportation agency being a joke to be good management of a city.

We no doubt have things that other cities don’t that I love. SD is, in my opinion, the most balanced large city in the country. By that I mean it has a bit of everything. You have outdoor/beach/recreation as well as decent urban life, it’s like the best of both worlds. So I do share your enthusiasm for this great city, but I cannot agree it’s well managed. It’s really not.

superfishy Sep 6, 2018 6:30 AM

I've been reading "NIMBY" here for a long time and I always thought it was some official oversight committee or something. Then I finally decided to look it up lol

Will O' Wisp Sep 6, 2018 8:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SDCAL (Post 8305106)
You make some good points but I have to disagree on two things:

1. I firmly believe that the decision to not move the airport to Miramar hurt our city tremendously. It was also hideously mismanaged. The city put out a half-assed vote that wasn’t even legally binding, it was more like a “feeler” to see what people thought, but it ended-up determining the fate of our airport for the rest of our lifetimes. That was not good management
2. I also submit to you as poor management of our city the agency of SANDAG. I won’t go into all the gory details here, but that agency has been mired in scandal and one only has to look at their decades of failed proposals and our poor transit network to see how incompetent they are. I don’t consider our region’s primary transportation agency being a joke to be good management of a city.

We no doubt have things that other cities don’t that I love. SD is, in my opinion, the most balanced large city in the country. By that I mean it has a bit of everything. You have outdoor/beach/recreation as well as decent urban life, it’s like the best of both worlds. So I do share your enthusiasm for this great city, but I cannot agree it’s well managed. It’s really not.

1. Miramar is the most feasible option for a new airport in the SD region, by a long shot, but to take it from the military would wreck havoc on SD's entire defense sector. The Navy and Marines do Field Carrier Landing Practice at the base, basically every pilot who deploys on one of the carriers out of North Island has to do a bunch of practice runs at Miramar beforehand. They have to do this before every single deployment, and there's nowhere else in the region to do it. North Island has too many operations already, El Centro is too small, and Yuma too far. No qualified pilots means no carriers, and with no carriers the entire naval presence in SD is rendered pointless.

Prop A proposed some form of joint use as a "compromise", which needless to say still wasn't going to be vary feasible when you have a dozen fighter jets swinging around the airport in tight little circles. The whole thing was a farce really, even if the measure had passed nothing would've happened seeing as only the federal government has the authority to close or transfer a military base. tbh, I'm 90% sure the whole thing was just a vehicle to create a Airport Authority (the airport was badly mismanaged by the port by many accounts) and give that new Authority a mandate to make comprehensive improvements to Lindbergh (which at that point had only been getting "temporary additions until we find a site for a new airport" since the 1960s).

2. Okay, that was a little F'd up. SANDAG really misjudged the timing on the 2008 recession when they planned out Transnet. But, surprisingly, it looks like they might be able to pull a rabbit out of the hat on this one. Latest funding reports I've seen show the full buildout as still feasible, provided SB-1 survives. Without it the frequency improvements to the Blue line and possibly the Orange line will be cut, but we'll still get all the highway improvements. Yay, I guess? :shrug:

We're probably seeing all the same sort of things, the only difference is I see all of SD's mismanagement and more in places like SF and SEA. At a certain point you can't expect perfect government, just a level of incompetence that doesn't hassle you too much. By that account at least SD is reasonable well managed.

eburress Sep 6, 2018 3:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by superfishy (Post 8305108)
I've been reading "NIMBY" here for a long time and I always thought it was some official oversight committee or something. Then I finally decided to look it up lol

hahaha - that's awesome, and you weren't too far off. :) The NIMBYs are the unofficial, me-first committee for keeping things as they once were.

staplesla Sep 7, 2018 4:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Will O' Wisp (Post 8305129)
1. Miramar is the most feasible option for a new airport in the SD region, by a long shot, but to take it from the military would wreck havoc on SD's entire defense sector. The Navy and Marines do Field Carrier Landing Practice at the base, basically every pilot who deploys on one of the carriers out of North Island has to do a bunch of practice runs at Miramar beforehand. They have to do this before every single deployment, and there's nowhere else in the region to do it. North Island has too many operations already, El Centro is too small, and Yuma too far. No qualified pilots means no carriers, and with no carriers the entire naval presence in SD is rendered pointless.

Prop A proposed some form of joint use as a "compromise", which needless to say still wasn't going to be vary feasible when you have a dozen fighter jets swinging around the airport in tight little circles. The whole thing was a farce really, even if the measure had passed nothing would've happened seeing as only the federal government has the authority to close or transfer a military base. tbh, I'm 90% sure the whole thing was just a vehicle to create a Airport Authority (the airport was badly mismanaged by the port by many accounts) and give that new Authority a mandate to make comprehensive improvements to Lindbergh (which at that point had only been getting "temporary additions until we find a site for a new airport" since the 1960s).

The plan was never to replace the military at Miramar, but to jointly use it. This is how St. Louis, Kansas City, and others manage their airports. Miramar has a tremendous amount of land that would have allowed for both the city and military uses to operate independent of each other. Btw, I served on the committee overseeing studies for the move and was in favor of it.

Will O' Wisp Sep 7, 2018 11:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by staplesla (Post 8306738)
The plan was never to replace the military at Miramar, but to jointly use it. This is how St. Louis, Kansas City, and others manage their airports. Miramar has a tremendous amount of land that would have allowed for both the city and military uses to operate independent of each other. Btw, I served on the committee overseeing studies for the move and was in favor of it.

I actually did my senior thesis on the relocation proposal back in the day, as part of which I reviewed virtually every scrap of documentation your committee ever put to paper and interviewed several high ranking USMC officers specifically regarding their thoughts on the feasibility of joint use. Acknowledging the great deal of hard work the SDCRAA did under often difficult conditions, the committee received a lot of complaints that it failed to approach the military in good faith during the initial selection process, that it refused to acknowledge the numerous safety and operational issues associated with joint use at Miramar, and that its decision-making process placed a higher value on local political concerns than on technical feasibility, some of which I found well-founded.

Specifically the committee failed to consider airspace considerations and concentrated solely on land use planning, and it ignored the training and readiness requirements of the USMC/USN (and how they differ from Air National Guard units like the ones at airports you cite). In response to your opinion that Miramar has "a tremendous amount of land" I would present the following image which lays out the accident prevention zones for FCLP operations.

https://image.ibb.co/kM1Mh9/Miramar_APZ.png


(I know this is from the Ricondo and Associates proposal, which I know the committee disavowed. This particular data is from the marines though.)

I work a few miles from Miramar nowadays, just watching 6 F/A-18s doing hairpin turns around the pattern like this should convince you that this is no place for a lumbering airliner. The alternative would be to shift the pattern northwards, with unacceptable safety and noise effects on Mira Mesa, or to build a runway north of the currents ones directly over the landside areas of the base (so you could add the cost of effectively rebuilding Miramar to the already substantial costs of building an international airport). The other two proposed locations locations in the Scrips Ranch area still suffered from the same problems, IFR approaches and missed approaches stretch for miles and miles and they'd be pointed directly over the Miramar runways.

The proposed "queuing" was also a non-starter. Trying to direct military aircraft around commercial ones (and vice versa) would lead to your average training mission spending over half its time flying in circles waiting for another pass and likely worse delays than Lindbergh already experiences for the airliners. Again, I respect immensely the work you and the committee did but from top to bottom the whole thing was implausible from the start.

staplesla Sep 8, 2018 3:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Will O' Wisp (Post 8307275)
I actually did my senior thesis on the relocation proposal back in the day, as part of which I reviewed virtually every scrap of documentation your committee ever put to paper and interviewed several high ranking USMC officers specifically regarding their thoughts on the feasibility of joint use. Acknowledging the great deal of hard work the SDCRAA did under often difficult conditions, the committee received a lot of complaints that it failed to approach the military in good faith during the initial selection process, that it refused to acknowledge the numerous safety and operational issues associated with joint use at Miramar, and that its decision-making process placed a higher value on local political concerns than on technical feasibility, some of which I found well-founded.

Specifically the committee failed to consider airspace considerations and concentrated solely on land use planning, and it ignored the training and readiness requirements of the USMC/USN (and how they differ from Air National Guard units like the ones at airports you cite). In response to your opinion that Miramar has "a tremendous amount of land" I would present the following image which lays out the accident prevention zones for FCLP operations.

https://image.ibb.co/kM1Mh9/Miramar_APZ.png


(I know this is from the Ricondo and Associates proposal, which I know the committee disavowed. This particular data is from the marines though.)

I work a few miles from Miramar nowadays, just watching 6 F/A-18s doing hairpin turns around the pattern like this should convince you that this is no place for a lumbering airliner. The alternative would be to shift the pattern northwards, with unacceptable safety and noise effects on Mira Mesa, or to build a runway north of the currents ones directly over the landside areas of the base (so you could add the cost of effectively rebuilding Miramar to the already substantial costs of building an international airport). The other two proposed locations locations in the Scrips Ranch area still suffered from the same problems, IFR approaches and missed approaches stretch for miles and miles and they'd be pointed directly over the Miramar runways.

The proposed "queuing" was also a non-starter. Trying to direct military aircraft around commercial ones (and vice versa) would lead to your average training mission spending over half its time flying in circles waiting for another pass and likely worse delays than Lindbergh already experiences for the airliners. Again, I respect immensely the work you and the committee did but from top to bottom the whole thing was implausible from the start.

Given my position with the committee and my current work with the city it would be inappropriate for me to comment much further on this topic. What I can say is that many of your comments are not factual. For your info, there are currently 10 civilian/Air Force joint use airports in the U.S. today, 10 army/civilian, and one joint use airport with the Navy in the U.S., many with with much less land space than that of Miramar. Additionally, I’d suggest you consider your own comments with regard to missed approaches and land space around Miramar to the current approaches at Lindbergh over Bankers Hill and takeoffs over Pt. Loma.

Will O' Wisp Sep 8, 2018 8:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by staplesla (Post 8307468)
Given my position with the committee and my current work with the city it would be inappropriate for me to comment much further on this topic. What I can say is that many of your comments are not factual. For your info, there are currently 10 civilian/Air Force joint use airports in the U.S. today, 10 army/civilian, and one joint use airport with the Navy in the U.S., many with with much less land space than that of Miramar. Additionally, I’d suggest you consider your own comments with regard to missed approaches and land space around Miramar to the current approaches at Lindbergh over Bankers Hill and takeoffs over Pt. Loma.

We can agree to disagree then, I'll just add that all of my facts came directly from military/government sources and were confirmed by an exhaustive reviews of the applicable FAA FARs, Part 150 ACs, and TERPS. I know about other joint use facilities including Yuma, which I'd consider the closest existing analogy to a joint use Miramar, they undergo a lot of struggles just to run a small regional airport within a larger base that doesn't conduct FCLP. And I'm well aware of KSAN's steep, obstacle filled approaches. It's the sort of thing that could never be done today unless it was grandfathered in. But I'm just an engineer who's done his homework, the board can have a dozen just as qualified as me for an expert opinion with little more than a snap of its fingers (although I should warn you private sector guys hate to say "that's impossible" outright to anything a client proposes, they'll be happy to conduct study after study and make alteration after alteration to their proposal until funding runs out instead).

Ultimately this discussion is purely academic anyway, the military ran a very successful campaign against Prop A in 2006 and prevented even a symbolic victory for joint use. San Diego's airport is San Diego's airport, at least for the foreseeable future.

Crackertastik Sep 8, 2018 3:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Will O' Wisp (Post 8307566)
We can agree to disagree then, I'll just add that all of my facts came directly from military/government sources and were confirmed by an exhaustive reviews of the applicable FAA FARs, Part 150 ACs, and TERPS. I know about other joint use facilities including Yuma, which I'd consider the closest existing analogy to a joint use Miramar, they undergo a lot of struggles just to run a small regional airport within a larger base that doesn't conduct FCLP. And I'm well aware of KSAN's steep, obstacle filled approaches. It's the sort of thing that could never be done today unless it was grandfathered in. But I'm just an engineer who's done his homework, the board can have a dozen just as qualified as me for an expert opinion with little more than a snap of its fingers (although I should warn you private sector guys hate to say "that's impossible" outright to anything a client proposes, they'll be happy to conduct study after study and make alteration after alteration to their proposal until funding runs out instead).

Ultimately this discussion is purely academic anyway, the military ran a very successful campaign against Prop A in 2006 and prevented even a symbolic victory for joint use. San Diego's airport is San Diego's airport, at least for the foreseeable future.

Floatport 2050! Lindbergh becomes the new downtown and has a boom like Pudong in Shanghai. I run for President and win.

JerellO Sep 8, 2018 5:14 PM

I’ve learned to love SAN, the fact that its right next to downtown is super convenient. A super tall would be nice but they don’t make a city, what makes a city is the ground floor interaction with the population. I think our downtown has that Goldilocks height.. it’s not too tall and not too short. It’s tall enough that you see and feel that you’re in a city, but it also doesn’t make you feel small and caved in like in the skyscraper canyons of other cities. Some of the great European cities don’t even have buildings as tall as San Diego, but because of the density and pedestrian activity on the street level, they are vibrant. Paris, Amsterdam and Rome are good examples. When I was stationed in Greece I stayed on the island of Crete in a small town called Chania, their downtown had more pedestrian activity than downtown San Diego day and night because it was their center. Outdoor cafes and restaurants along with retail and nightclubs lined the streets.

Downtown Sam Diego just needs all the neighborhoods to have that cohesive pedestrian energy to tie it all together with a bigger population, all the shops, restaurants and stuff to bring it all together.

spoonman Sep 8, 2018 5:46 PM

WilloWisp,

It seems you are making the argument that San Diego tried to push for joint use of Miramar, it failed (for good reason in your opinion), and that as a result we shouldn’t claim that SD has failed on this and other issues.

Your points on Miramar May be valid but are moot. The reality is San Diego had a chance to get Miramar for free in the 90’s due to BRAC and completely blew the opportunity. This is the city’s version of turning down the Louisiana purchase or deciding not to buy Manhattan from the Indians. The city punted on this like they normally do and did nothing. Classic.


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