City Planners Reject Harbor Square Plan

Long-laid plans for a hotel, restaurant and office complex on land now used for parking at the County Administration Center were flatly rejected Thursday by the San Diego Planning Commission.

With several members saying they believed the concept of a proposed world trade center was no more than a disguise for the construction of office buildings that would otherwise be unpopular on the waterfront, the commission voted unanimously against the project, known as Harbor Square.

The developers conceded they were shocked by the decision and said immediately that they would appeal to the City Council.

“They threw us for a loop,” said Bob Rosenthal, a partner in ZRD Development Inc., which has a contract with the county to develop the land under a long-term lease.

Rosenthal and a cadre of representatives hired by ZRD, including a public relations firm and an expert on world trade centers, came to the hearing expecting to quibble over conditions that the city’s Planning Department had proposed for the project. Leon Williams, chairman of the county Board of Supervisors, spoke in favor of the plan.

But the more the commissioners heard about the two proposed office buildings and their supposed designation as a world trade center, the more skeptical they became. Finally, after a four-hour hearing, they agreed to reject the entire proposal rather than attempt to alter it.

The commissioners’ doubts, evident from the start of ZRD’s presentation, were heightened as they fired questions at John Bollinger, a consultant from Los Angeles said to be knowledgeable on world trade center issues.

Among other questions, the commissioners asked why the buildings’ lobbies included just 3,000 square feet of exhibit space, an amount Roberts said was similar to that in many of the newer downtown office towers. They asked if the marketing strategy, not the buildings themselves, was not the key to a world trade center effort. They wanted to know what would prompt tenants with international business to locate at Harbor Square instead of elsewhere in San Diego. And they wondered why the developer had not yet done a study to determine if there was a market for a world trade center here.

Although Bollinger and the developer’s other representatives offered numerous explanations, none quelled the commission’s concerns.

“I expected more than what we are seeing,” Commissioner Ron Roberts said. “The world trade center label is being used as a cloak of respectability for an office building. I think it’s a feeble attempt at a world trade center. A neighborhood trade center, maybe. A world trade center, definitely not.”

The commissioners said they were reluctant to allow development of a site that the city’s general plan designates for eventual use as a public park.

Commissioner Yvonne Larsen called the historic County Administration Center, with its Spanish-style architecture characteristic of the 1930s work of the federal Public Works Administration, “a signature for San Diego” that would be marred if surrounded by a 400-room hotel, twin office buildings and several restaurants.

Still, there was a consensus on the commission that some development of the area might be acceptable, as long as its emphasis was public rather than commercial or tourism.

“You don’t have to have this entire area be open space or a park,” Commissioner Henry Empeno said.

By sending the project back to the drawing board, the commission handed Supervisor Susan Golding her first major triumph since taking office last month. Golding tried without success after she was elected Nov. 6 to persuade the supervisors to withhold their approval of the project until she could take her seat in January.

Instead, Golding showed up at City Hall Thursday, said she was speaking as an individual rather than as “an agent for the county,” and proceeded to blast the plans for Harbor Square, a project that for four years has been one of the highest priorities of the board on which she now sits. The project was expected to generate as much as $4 million a year in direct revenue for the county.

“I think the Harbor Square proposal is the wrong idea for the wrong place,” Golding said. “I think we should take another look at what the creative, exciting long-range use of that property ought to be.”

Although Golding would not spell out just what use she believes would be ideal for the site, she has said before that she would like to see a collection of shops, restaurants and open space that would be attractive to San Diegans and tourists alike.

Golding’s comments irked Williams, the Board of Supervisors’ chairman who represented the county before the city planners, who must approve the project because the land, while owned by the county, lies within the city’s boundaries.

“I wouldn’t ever do that,” Williams said of Golding’s action. “I haven’t ever done that in my 16 years of public service. Many things this county did before I got here were things I didn’t agree with. If everyone entering a public body took the position that contracts entered into were fair game to destroy, the county’s business would be in chaos.”

But Golding said she did not believe her action would harm the county, even in light of a letter the supervisors received from the developer’s attorney Tuesday. The letter warned the county that it had “an implied contractual obligation to act in good faith and not to take any steps to jeopardize the developer’s ability” to meet the conditions of its lease with the county.

Golding pointed out that she was joined in her opposition to the project by community groups and influential San Diegans, including shopping center developer Ernest W. Hahn, residential developer Tawfiq Khoury, and Douglas Manchester, who is building three hotel towers a few blocks down the waterfront next to the planned downtown convention center.