SAN DIEGO | Boom Rundown, Vol. 2

[SDCAL]

Originally Posted by Nv_2897

Also does anyone know when will the Ritz Carlton should break ground in East Village. Hopefully it breaks ground before the incoming recession.

I was able to get some info on this from people directly involved. Their original financing fell through due to someone backing-out, but they have other financing options and are still pretty confident in the project. They hope an announcement in the next month or so but construction won’t be until early next year, unfortunately. This one keeps getting delayed but as I said they are still positive.

[Will O' Wisp]

Originally Posted by SDCAL

Once the Navy HQ is complete they will “perfect the ground lease”?

What does that mean? Is that a vague way of saying they will pursue financing after that? I don’t want to re-hash old arguments on this board but in my opinion Manchester seems shady about how they went about this whole thing. This is not how they sold the project timeline to the public up-front.

Perfecting a lease means the lessee has fulfilled some requirement or condition, formally activating the lease. An simple example would be a clause stating that the lessee is required to pay a security deposit before taking possession of an apartment. But the requirements can be anything, like requiring a developer to obtain building permits for a subdivision before they can take possession of a particular plat.

From this and a few other articles it's now fairly clear what's going on. The Navy is requiring MPG to build the Navy office tower to completion, have the Navy accept the build as adequate, and allow the Navy to move in before they give MPG control over the Navy's land (aka perfecting their ground lease). Because the Navy retains complete ownership of anything built upon the land until MPG's lease is perfected, MPG can't use any (future) buildings built upon it as collateral for a loan until the Navy office tower is finished. No bank is going to lend you money against something another party can take back whenever it pleases them.

Note that this doesn't mean MPG will have to go out and hunt down financing after they finish the Navy office. They could already have agreements with creditors in place (and claim to do). But the money doesn't transfer hands until MPG finishes the Navy office. This keeps all the risk on the developer, as the investors haven't handed over any of their cash yet, and in the event MPG can't finish the office tower the Navy can just re-lease out the land to whomever they like. The whole concept is extremely common in P3s, just a month ago I took the keys to a building after going through the exact same process.

[CrookedRecords]

Superfishy: "I noticed an old 3-story office building on the corner of 3rd and A now has fences around it. Anyone know what for? Demolition?"

3rd and A is the location of a Hanover project that they are calling "Hanover 3rd and A" at this time. It will be a 21 story residential tower.

These files created by me...

[Maldive]

Suprised no discussion of bluff failure causing tragic fatalities. Nevermind the train issue, chunks of this piece of the coast was and is, scary for family beach visits.

Originally Posted by Maldive

My best friend lives in Del Mar, 200 feet from the bluffs. After walking the bluffs during my half dozen trips my eye was always drawn to precarious train tracks... always looked like one storm away from disaster.

Don't know if this debate is continuing, but 7 years ago there was mild panic about discussions of "expropriation" and moving the tracks east.

Multi-million dollar residences cling to those cliffs... bet their real estate agents are developing ulcers.

[Streamliner]

Originally Posted by Maldive

Suprised no discussion of bluff failure causing tragic fatalities. Nevermind the train issue, chunks of this piece of the coast was and is, scary for family beach visits.

Agreed. The bluff erosion issue is going to be a big issue for a long time, especially with sea level rise and the difficulty of procuring sand replenishment, and the Coastal Commission's stance against sea walls.

[mello]

As you guys remember this project somehow got tied up with the Cisterra Ritz tower in that ridiculous Union extortion lawsuit that has held up both buildings. I spoke with J Street who announced another 14 floor tower just a few blocks east and they said they are still 6 months out from announcing construction on the Hilton.

The rep said they are no longer tied to Cisterra and both projects are independent. So lets hope they both get going soon.

Manchester Pac Gate: Why can't they start digging the holes for the Office and Hotel towers now? It won't affect the construction of the Navy Building or the existing Navy Office in use now.... It would save a ton of time if they started digging now right

[CrookedRecords]

Originally Posted by mello

As you guys remember this project somehow got tied up with the Cisterra Ritz tower in that ridiculous Union extortion lawsuit that has held up both buildings. I spoke with J Street who announced another 14 floor tower just a few blocks east and they said they are still 6 months out from announcing construction on the Hilton.

The rep said they are no longer tied to Cisterra and both projects are independent. So lets hope they both get going soon.

Manchester Pac Gate: Why can't they start digging the holes for the Office and Hotel towers now? It won't affect the construction of the Navy Building or the existing Navy Office in use now.... It would save a ton of time if they started digging now right

As far as I know they haven't awarded the jobs to the General Contractors. I worked with Turner for quite a while on this first phase. The first phase was awarded to them but the job is being broken up into pieces and each phase will go through a whole new bidding process. If I remember correctly there will be a total of nine but that is just a memory. There will be a total of 12 cranes plus or minus on the job but not all at one time. For a while they were looking at the 2nd phase and trying to figure out how they were going to set that 75 ton bridge in between the two towers. One issue I noticed is that the radius of the north crane in the first phase will interfere with any crane placed in the correct location with the correct radius in the 2nd phase.

I'm not to sure how pleased everybody is with Turner right now. The scope of this job is truly immense. I have been speaking to other trades about it for the past 3 years and there is an interior elevator company that said if they took all of their employees country wide and placed them on this job they would not have enough man power. I heard that there will be something around a few hundred elevators total?

I'm hearing that the Gaylord job is moving forward in South Bay. That will be another massive project....

[Will O' Wisp]

Originally Posted by CrookedRecords

I heard that there will be something around a few hundred elevators total?

That's kinda ridiculously high. Your average ultra-tall with 3 sky lobbies will only have 50-60 elevators, and all we're looking at here is a pair of high rises, a mid rise, and three low rises.

[CrookedRecords]

That's what I thought as well. That number was mentioned around 3 years ago or so when I was still working on the new courthouse building. There may have been some design changes since then I'm sure. The current phase may be doubled up because just like the "poor door" solution that pinnacle had come up with in the mixed use buildings the Navy building will have secure areas and areas accessible to the public. Each probably needs their own stairs and elevators and that is for the underground parking as well at least in this case. That was one issue that was mentioned to me during a conversation with a contractor about separating tenants in buildings and that is that much of the space is used up with all of the necessary elevator shafts. I guess if I end up getting a full set of plans I'll have to count them all.

[mello]

Look at the bond markets today tons of people flooding in to 2 year bonds. Big sign that confidence in economy is eroding fast. Let's get these towers started! Not sure why we hear of approvals and then they say, "Construction starting Q1 of 2020"... What's the hold up?

Will O Wisp: You are a developer give us your assessment what is going on with Cisterra 7th/Market, Alexan Little Italy, CA Theatre, 1st and Beech all approved but timeline for shovels in the ground pushed back months to years after approval? (Well I think we know Ritz was a unique case due to Union extortion towers should have been almost finished by now if that lawsuit hadn't happened)

[Will O' Wisp]

Originally Posted by mello

Look at the bond markets today tons of people flooding in to 2 year bonds. Big sign that confidence in economy is eroding fast. Let's get these towers started! Not sure why we hear of approvals and then they say, "Construction starting Q1 of 2020"... What's the hold up?

Will O Wisp: You are a developer give us your assessment what is going on with Cisterra 7th/Market, Alexan Little Italy, CA Theatre, 1st and Beech all approved but timeline for shovels in the ground pushed back months to years after approval? (Well I think we know Ritz was a unique case due to Union extortion towers should have been almost finished by now if that lawsuit hadn't happened)

Well, I work primarily on industrial/commercial projects so the issues affecting my industry can be very different from the ones affecting developers downtown. But I've observed all of the following factors effect project timelines recently:

-The tariffs have not been great for the industry, material costs have risen significantly overall and certain items can be in short supply.
-The low jobless rate has made finding labor difficult and expensive. Most general contractors are pretty well tapped out, and projects are constantly jostling to get to the head of the line.
-The building & trades union has been CEQA suing a huge slate of projects lately to force developers into PLAs. Beyond the legal delays this exacerbates labor issues as union shops can't scale up to demand very quickly, which means they're even more tapped out atm.
-All of the above have lead to increased construction costs, around 10-20%. This has been playing hell with many a project's financing, sometimes requiring renegotiation with lenders/investors.

There's a lot of divided feelings about the future of the economy. So, the basic concept behind a recession/depression is the market discovering some asset class is grossly overvalued. Think mortgages in 07, when everyone suddenly learned that MBS securities were worthless since homeowners didn't have enough income to pay them back. The resulting chaos comes from the various sectors of our highly interconnected economy struggling to entangle themselves from this massive hole and figure out what they're actually worth.

The issue today is that no one can quite decipher what that overvalued asset might be, or how we'll figure it out. Might be something relatively small, like stocks in Uber and other app companies when it becomes clear that they have no path to profitability. Might be massive, like US treasury bonds if our political system becomes so divided that we can't make our debt payments. Or it could, quite possibly, be nothing and the markets are just spooked. There's no firm proof of any of these things. All the nasty signs so far have only been indications that a subconscious fear of something is running through a lot of people's minds, but the firm statistics of the economy right now (GDP growth, productivity, unemployment rate, consumer spending) are all fairly rosy.

That's how you get the current situation with one group of investors taking faith in the wisdom of crowds and playing cautiously upon the belief that something is fundamentally wrong with the markets, even if they don't fully understand what is is, and another bullishly forging ahead buoyed on by their immediate view of a strong economy.

[Streamliner]

This project seems to be a sure bet, at least. I'm very excited for this one, with it being a cultural center on the waterfront, with a really nice, sleek design. It's something a world-class waterfront city should have.

Symphony will start building its permanent bayside venue next month
August 14, 2019
Jennifer Van Grove

Union-Tribune Article

The San Diego Symphony is just weeks away from breaking ground on its $45 million Bayside Performance Park venue thanks to large gifts from big-money philanthropists.

Wednesday, the San Diego Symphony Orchestra Association’s board of directors voted to push forward with construction once the current season wraps up, meaning the project should commence in the second week of September and finish in July of next year. The decision represents confidence in the nonprofit’s ability to secure the private funding necessary to build the venue and complete park improvements.

Already, the institution has raised more than half of the funds required, said Martha Gilmer, who is the symphony’s chief executive officer. Lead contributions include a gift made possible by Una Davis, who is the wife of former City Manager Jack McGrory. Well-known philanthropic couples Joan and Irwin Jacobs, and Ernest and Evelyn Rady are also giving substantial sums to help finance the project, although exact amounts weren’t disclosed.

"(With the board’s OK), we’re really putting shovels in the dirt and beginning construction on this remarkable project,” Gilmer said.

The project reached its crescendo, transitioning from theoretical to actual, last month when the Port of San Diego agreed to lease a 3.68-acre site on Embarcadero Marina Park to the symphony for up to 50 years. The agreement was the last regulatory action needed for the symphony’s long-planned outdoor facility, which will serve as the permanent home of the Bayside Summer Nights concert series.

The project includes a 13,015-square-foot outdoor stage, acoustic shell and back-of-house facilities for a year-round version of the program formerly known as the Summer Pops. It also entails a 5,445-square-foot public viewing deck with concrete steps at the back of the stage, a 68-stall restroom and two pavilions on a 15,242-square-foot area.

The symphony must also complete a number of park improvements outside of its leasehold, including replacing the existing basketball courts and updating the public restrooms. It is also limited to hosting 110 half-day or 55 full-day restricted events, leaving the site open to the public for most of the year.

The institution typically hosts 33 outdoor concerts as part of the annual series, which dates to 1983 and has been in its current location, on and off, since 1991. This year, 14 of the 23 shows hosted so far are considered sellouts, meaning 2,500 tickets were distributed. With the new facility, the symphony expects an average attendance of 3,100 people per event, however the venue’s flexible seating design will allow for crowds as small as 2,000 people and as large as 10,000 people.

[Streamliner]

Re: Will O' Wisp ^^Great assessment

Originally Posted by Will O' Wisp

-The building & trades union has been CEQA suing a huge slate of projects lately to force developers into PLAs. Beyond the legal delays this exacerbates labor issues as union shops can't scale up to demand very quickly, which means they're even more tapped out atm.

I can definitely attest to this one. I feel like there's been a large uptick in these kinds of complaints recently for every large project.

[JerellO]

Wow, completely forgot about the Symphony’s development that’s so exciting!!

Also, our city hall is garbage lol whatever happened to redeveloping our city hall/civic center?

[Northparkwizard]

Originally Posted by JerellO

Wow, completely forgot about the Symphony’s development that’s so exciting!!

Also, our city hall is garbage lol whatever happened to redeveloping our city hall/civic center?

I'd guess that gathering public support behind an expensive multi-year redevelopment project/expansion for city hall/civic center isn't an easy sell or a top priority of any council member. Although, it's fairly obvious that it's badly needed.

Our Development Services Department could really use new facilities as well to meet demand. Anyone who's visited the new(ish) SD County Ops Center knows what i'm talking about.

[Streamliner]

Sadly it's one of those things that will appear wasteful to the average citizen, but meanwhile the City's spending tons of $$ renting out space and sitting in inefficient 60's-era buildings. Last year, 550 city workers had to relocate immediately when asbestos was discovered in their offices.

[Fozcat]

Speaking of EVERYTHING tick tock Horton Plaza.

[Nv_2897]

Horton Plaza Redevelopment

[Nv_2897]

I saw on carrier johnson + culture's instagram that the bridge that linked the former courthouse and the city jail (front street bridge) was taken down on Tuesday. Could this mean they are ready to start demo on the old courthouse building?

[joemamma]

I guess the rumor about bringing NBA team to a new downtown San Diego arena are gone with this deal.

Rumor was Joe Tsai would buy the team and bring them here (across from Petco) but today's deal means Nets stay in Brooklyn.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...or-3-5-billion