Highly Heralded Horton Plaza Hastily Readied for Debut

One of the most ambitious retail structures ever built in a single stroke in an American city . . . Architecturally stunning. --The New York Times

A daring design . . . lively, whimsical. --The Wall Street Journal

It is already considered the most spectacular construction ever attempted in the remaking of a major American city. --California magazine

A drum roll, please.

Horton Plaza--the $170-million phantasmagoria of architecture, art, color and commerce that boosters say heralds the birth of the “new” San Diego--will make its grand premiere on Friday to the blare of trumpets, a cascade of confetti and the release of 50,000 balloons.

For developer Ernest W. Hahn and civic leaders, it will be a time of celebration. California Sen. Pete Wilson, who as the mayor of San Diego led the long political struggle for the project, will be on hand for the ribbon-cutting. Mayor Roger Hedgecock has been quoted as saying he hopes citizens remember Friday “for decades as the day in which the new San Diego was unveiled to the world.”

For harried retailers, it will be a time of toil. Although construction crews continue to work long hours, only 50 to 60 of the facility’s 140-plus stores--and none of the theaters or sit-down restaurants--will be open for business Friday. Expect merchandise to be rolling in the back as the customers walk in the front.

And for the public at large, it should be interesting.

Even though it is being hyped to the hilt--one promotional piece spoke of a terrace as a “temple” where “we can all tilt our faces to the sun”--there is no disputing that Horton Plaza, though perhaps not a religious experience, represents something new and different in the way of shopping and entertainment centers.

If it’s true that, when the going gets tough, the tough go shopping, then Horton Plaza is rugged, exotic terrain, indeed. When it is 100% complete, it will be a Technicolor Magic Mountain-range of department stores, specialty shops, restaurants, cinemas and stage theaters.

Striving to create the atmosphere of a festival marketplace, architect Jon Jerde and his assistants came up with more angles than a train wreck--a multilayer maze of walkways, stairsteps, terraces, bridges, arches, pillars, beams and cupolas. All of this is dressed up with tile, neon, flags, greenery, flowers, either 28 or 49 hues of paint (depending on who’s talking), three works of sculpture, the relocated Jessop’s Jewelers’ street clock (long a downtown landmark) and a topiary of dancing hippos.

Wafting through Horton Plaza will be the aromas of florists, the Irvine Ranch Farmers’ Market, various restaurants, and outlets selling San Francisco sourdough bread, chocolate chip cookies, “gourmet” potato chips and corndogs-on-a-stick. At least initially, musicians, singers, jugglers, mimes and clowns will provide entertainment.

Though some have criticized Jerde’s design as short on substance and long on cosmetic kitsch, Horton Plaza has received mostly raves from the civic leaders who, in a sense, commissioned the work, as well as from tenants who have moved into the plaza.

Ed Bridge, vice president of Seattle-based Ben Bridge Jewelers, arrived Monday to help coordinate the opening of his outlet near Horton Plaza’s dancing hippos. Ben Bridge has 22 outlets around the country, including 21 in shopping centers.

“I’ve been to malls all over the country,” Ed Bridge said Wednesday. “There isn’t any mall in the country that compares to this.”

“I had heard all the hype, and I was really expecting to be let down,” he added. “I could be considered somewhat jaded on malls . . . but this is spectacular.”

Lee Grissom, president of the Greater San Diego Chamber of Commerce, also praised the project on an impromptu tour earlier this week. He likened a tier of steps to “the Spanish steps in Rome.”

The genesis of the new Horton Plaza, Grissom recalled, took place “almost 20 years ago. It really started with the questions of what to do with the bathrooms in Horton Plaza.”

He was referring to the Horton Plaza Park, the little half-block doormat of grass fronting Broadway between 3rd and 4th avenues that has been a gathering spot for street people. Its underground restrooms had been used for drug deals and other illicit activities, Grissom recalled, prompting then-Mayor Frank Curran and other officials to start talking about ways to redevelop the run-down retail sector south of Broadway.

“It just kind of evolved from there,” Grissom said.

The next mayor, Pete Wilson, made downtown redevelopment his top priority, and championed the creation of the Centre City Development Corp. to spur and coordinate renewal efforts. CCDC then spent $33 million in public money to condemn and buy out businesses and landowners on the 6 1/2-block site. Hahn bought the site from CCDC for $1 million, then Jerde masterminded the controversial design.

Jerde, who was architectural coordinator for the Los Angeles Olympics, boasts that he is “trying to reinvent the American city.” Horton Plaza is viewed as the key to making San Diegans, a distinctly suburban people, actually want to go downtown.

Listening to the promoters, one might think that Horton Plaza is already a smash success, and that the new San Diego is upon us. One publicist for Hahn’s firm recently said that Jerde’s creation will be duplicated, more or less, throughout the country in the years to come. It was not a prediction or even a declaration; it was a flat statement.

Still, not a blouse has been sold, not a beer quaffed, not a play staged or a motion picture screened. It will be years before Horton Plaza can be judged a success or failure or something in between.

One of the immediate questions is security. Located hard against the seedy Gaslamp District and the newly refurbished Horton Plaza Park, plaza officials are counting on a private security force of more than 40 guards to keep the area free of loiterers.

Lt. Claude Gray of the San Diego Police Department central division said two officers will be assigned initially to patrol Horton Plaza Park. With retailers concerned that street people may reclaim the park as their own, Gray said the officers have been given orders to strictly enforce laws at the park.

“You’ve got to remember it’s not illegal for someone to . . . have an undesirable appearance to some people,” Gray said. “But any littering, drunkenness, panhandling, drug dealing or anything else illegal--that will not be tolerated. We’re going to be very much on the scene.”

One aspect of the campaign against street people can be found in the benches placed at Horton Plaza Park. The benches are outfitted with extra armrests that partition the seating. “It keeps the bums from sleeping on them,” said police spokesman Rick Carlson.

With a preview party scheduled tonight--an event that is invitation-only but is still expected to attract 5,000 people--workers have been trying to give a finished look to an unfinished center. At some stores, members of the electricians’, glassworkers’ and carpenters’ union manned pickets to protest the presence of non-union subcontractors.

John W. Gilchrist, president of Ernest W. Hahn Inc., was supervising the supervisors of work crews Wednesday near the pit that leads to the two subterranean Lyceum Theatres to be operated by the San Diego Repertory Theatre. He was placing priorities on work to be done.

“We’ve got to grout this out,” he said, gesturing to the brick patio. “We’ve got to take down that scaffolding.”

Gilchrist was asked about the 28 colors used to decorate Horton Plaza. “There’s really 49,” Gilchrist said.

The day before, Ann Cox, a Hahn publicist, had insisted there were 28 colors--and that the notion of 49 colors was rumor generated in the press. “We’ve tried to quash that every time we’ve heard it,” Cox said.

Gilchrist was standing where the stage would be constructed for the opening ceremony scheduled for 9 a.m. Friday. He talked about the “mini-parade” of street artists from the Community Concourse to the plaza, and then pointed to a 150-foot-long high-tension cable strung between Robinson’s and The Broadway, 80 feet above the patio.

After the customary speeches by Wilson, Hahn, Hedgecock and other dignitaries, Philippe Petit, a French high-wire walker best known for strolling between the tops of the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Centers, will walk two-thirds of the way across the wire at Horton Plaza.

Petit will then stop and lower a $25,000 diamond-encrusted set of scissors, provided by Zale’s jewelers, to Hahn and Wilson, who will then cut the ribbon, formally opening the center, and signal the trumpets, confetti and balloons. Petit, presumably, will finish his walk.

Patty Danos, a Horton Plaza spokeswoman, said that more than 20,000 shoppers are expected each day Friday through Sunday during opening festivities.

“I’m not sure whether we’ll have that many people or not,” said a smiling Gilchrist. “But I think we’ll have a lot.”