CCDC OKs Mixed-Use Plan Downtown

Downtown San Diego’s first major mixed-use project--incorporating housing, offices and stores in one building--received conceptual approval Friday from the Centre City Development Corp.

Approval of the basic concept and schematic drawings of the project--called City Plaza--will now be followed by a formal development contract between the city’s redevelopment agency and Southwest Estate Group Inc., the developer. The CCDC will consider the contract on Oct. 18, followed by the City Council on Oct. 22.

The success of City Plaza is an integral part of the city’s formula for creating a cosmopolitan downtown that will attract people after dark and on weekends. Gerald Trimble, CCDC executive vice president, has underscored the significance of City Plaza, calling it a potential catalyst for a new generation of mixed-use projects downtown.

Cost of constructing the building, across from the southwest corner of the new Horton Plaza, is estimated at $36 million. Still under negotiation is the cost of the land subsidy the city will provide as an incentive, which could amount to $1 million or more, according to Kathy Kalland, spokeswoman for CCDC.

As proposed, the project, on a block bounded by 1st Avenue and Market, Front and G streets, would include a seven-story building over two underground levels of parking. It would have 38,200 square feet of retail stores and restaurants on the ground floor and 138,500 square feet of offices above that. It would all be topped by three floors containing 80 condominiums, according to Scott Aishton, who is in charge of design for the Jerde Partnership, architects for both Horton Plaza and City Plaza.

Not coincidentally, the proposed City Plaza has been designed to complement its splashy neighbor. “It’s not identical to Horton Plaza but it relates to it,” Aishton told the CCDC board of directors.

The building will contain a central walkway that will enable people to easily travel to and from Horton Plaza, through City Plaza and beyond to the next block. At the center of City Plaza is a large atrium-style courtyard, which Aishton called the tie-in for the the various housing, office and retail uses.

The 80 condominiums, with an average price of about $150,000, are intended to attract those with money seeking a comfortable urban life style, Aishton said. If the development agreement is approved later this month, construction of City Plaza would begin in the spring, with completion set for the summer of 1987.

The developer, SEG, is based in San Diego and has offices in Denver and Phoenix. It is part of a larger firm, SEG Vienna, a residential developer in Austria.

SEG is involved in a mixed-use project in La Jolla called Prospect Point.

In other action, the CCDC board approved more construction drawings for the Market Street Square project. This project would have 192 apartments, 40 of which would be set aside for those with low incomes, and 7,500 square feet of commercial space on the ground floor.

Market Street Square, bounded by G and Market streets and 2nd and 3rd avenues, is one block away from City Plaza’s proposed site.

Developed by Shapell Housing Inc. in partnership with Goldrich Kest and Associates, Market Street Square would consist of a four-story building over two underground levels of parking.

Financing for the estimated $12.5-million project comes primarily from public money. The developer is putting in slightly more than $1 million, and the rest is to come from the anticipated sale of about $7.8 million in mortgage revenue bonds by the San Diego County Housing Authority and a $3.6-million grant from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.

In addition, though it is not included in the financing costs, the city is basically giving away the land to Shapell and Goldrich Kest as an incentive. The city, through the redevelopment agency, is leasing the land to the company for $1 a year for 55 years.

Mark A. Maltzman, vice president of Shapell, said after the CCDC meeting that the market value of the land is about $3 million.

If the revenue mortgage bonds are sold in early November, as expected, ground breaking for Market Street Square would begin later in the month, Maltzman said, with completion expected in spring of 1987.