Something to Build On : Study Offers Upbeat Progress Report on Downtown San Diego

Hailing downtown San Diego as being poised “on the threshold of greatness,” a group of the nation’s leading urban planners Friday effusively praised its revitalization to date and suggested ways to build on that momentum over the next decade.

Wrapping up an intensive weeklong study of the center city, members of the Urban Land Institute (ULI) gave an upbeat assessment of its present and painted an exceptionally rosy picture of its future that left city leaders gushing with enthusiasm.

In brief, institute officials told the nearly 150 San Diego political, business and civic luminaries gathered at the 2 1/2-hour meeting at Golden Hall that a decade after the city began working in earnest to rejuvenate its decaying urban core, downtown’s problems are relatively few and its attributes many.

Although they identified downtown’s shortcomings--including the need for more housing, parking and a buffed-up image--the planning and development experts emphasized their belief that growth downtown will continue apace if city leaders simply fine-tune planning goals, develop better marketing strategies and forge a renewed consensus among public and private sector leaders on specific short- and longterm objectives.

The group offered numerous specific suggestions, ranging from numerical targets for downtown apartment construction to hiring a “marketing czar” to promote downtown here and nationwide. But a more general piece of advice--the need for mayoral leadership to refocus the city’s redevelopment efforts and goals--was described by several institute members as perhaps the most critical recommendation of their study.

“The personal leadership of the mayor and the strength of the mayor’s office is the only effective vehicle to move San Diego forward to achieve its great potential,” said James Todd, a Virginia developer and chairman of the group.

“The most valuable thing that could occur here over the next six months would be for the mayor to lock some of these landowners and public officials in a room and not let them out until they come up with some priorities and specific timetables,” Todd added. “This wouldn’t be just one more group going over old ground or a ‘study-it-to-death’ kind of thing. If you want to reach your goals sooner rather than later, you have to go through this process.”

After the meeting, City Councilman William Jones said that he believes Mayor Maureen O’Connor, who was in Washington Friday, and the City Council will be receptive to that suggestion.

“It may sound like a fairly simple, common-sense thing to do,” Jones said, “but the fact that it comes from this group of experts gives it added weight. I think you’ll find that the mayor and council will be very eager to move ahead with that and most of the other recommendations.”

Throughout their presentation Friday--a more detailed written report will be completed in about two months--ULI members continually urged city leaders to keep their frustrations about downtown in perspective. They noted that, in contrast with those of many other major American cities, San Diego’s center city has virtually unlimited potential.

“Most cities would exchange problems with you sight unseen,” said Gary Stout, one of 11 institute members who over the past week interviewed dozens of San Diegans, toured downtown and other areas extensively and participated in numerous late-night brainstorming sessions analyzing the past efforts of the various local groups responsible for redevelopment and coming up with a rough blueprint for the future.

“All redevelopment takes a lot longer than you think it’s going to,” added Nell Surber, who has overseen the much-praised redevelopment of downtown Cincinnati. “But the opportunities you have here are so tremendous that they’d have to be the envy of almost any urban planner in the country.”

The Urban Land Institute is a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization whose 8,000 members--developers, government planners, building and real estate consultants and academicians--are devoted to improving land-use planning. All members are volunteers.

Local public and private groups contributed a total of $100,000 to bring the institute members to San Diego in the hope that their outsiders’ perspective--some had never visited here--would offer fresh insights on growth downtown.

ULI studies are noted for producing candid, no-holds-barred remarks that sometimes leave the local officials who underwrite them cringing and discouraged. However, any fears San Diego redevelopment gurus might have had about receiving a bad report card in public were alleviated at the outset of the meeting, when Todd offered a glowing evaluation.

“In our judgment, San Diego truly stands on the threshold of greatness,” Todd said. “The question is: Will it go forward or will it go back?”

Saying that the city’s moderate climate and attractive waterfront provide a solid foundation for redevelopment, Todd pointed out that San Diego has already taken “five major steps forward”--the opening of Horton Plaza, the revitalization of the Gaslamp Quarter, the construction of waterfront hotels and Seaport Village and the development of housing in the marina area.

“All of this is a great beginning, but much, more more needs to be done if San Diego is to achieve its full potential,” Todd said.

To no one’s surprise, Todd listed building the proposed waterfront convention center at the top of downtown’s priorities, calling the much-delayed project a “critical incomplete planned step forward that . . . must occur as quickly as possible.” Not only will the convention center bring bring tens of thousands of free-spending visitors annually, it also will help promote business growth, institute members noted.

The absence of sufficient residential housing, particularly rental units, is another major obstacle to creating what institute member Gadi Kaufmann, the managing partner of a nationwide real-estate management and marketing firm, termed the “critical mass” of people needed to make downtown “a 24-hour-a-day city.”

Over the next five years, apartments should make up about 75% of the housing built downtown, Kaufmann said. He predicted an annual demand for 600 to 1,000 units in the “attainable price range”--up to $1,000 per month. Although most recent downtown residential projects have been concentrated in southwestern quadrant, near the bay, by the mid-1990s, the eastern edge from 5th to 12th avenues could become the prime place for housing development in the center city, institute members said.

In regard to transportation and parking, institute members urged local officials to press ahead with planned improvements in public transportation, and they identified inadequate and expensive parking as a serious problem. Requirements for sufficient on-site parking for new retail and other projects could help change that situation, the planners suggested.

They also argued that San Diego leaders have done a poor job of, as one of them put it, “telling the story of downtown and its progress” to even local residents. Despite the improvements brought about by Horton Plaza and other redevelopment projects, institute officials said, many San Diegans continue to see downtown as a hassle-ridden, sometimes dangerous place that has limited social and cultural amenities.

That outdated, largely inaccurate image shows that there is a need for a nationally known marketing and advertising consultant who can persuade people here and elsewhere that downtown San Diego is “an upbeat, complete urban center,” said institute member Clyde Jackson Jr.

“You need to . . . market to the locals first, then regionally, then nationally,” Jackson said.

Also included in the urban planners’ report are findings, recommendations and observations that:

- Better ways to link Balboa Park to downtown need to be found, including perhaps relandscaping 12th Avenue to create an attractive pedestrian and auto “connector” between the park and the center city.

- The future of the Gaslamp Quarter could hinge on its ability to serve the needs of downtown’s growing residential base and of tourists, rather than competing directly for retail customers with Horton Plaza.

- Downtown’s major competition for shoppers, residents and offices is not Mission Valley but rather the Golden Triangle area surrounding the University Towne Centre shopping center. Jackson characterized Mission Valley as a poorly planned region that is not “a long-term threat” and the Golden Triangle as “a glitzy, attractive area” whose attractions are similar to those of downtown.

- Attractive street-level walkways, rather than the overhead bridges that have been widely suggested, would be a better way to tie the convention center with the center city.

- Large-scale projects near the bayfront County Administration Building, which have been proposed in the past, would be ill-advised because they would detract from its Spanish colonial architecture. “The county building deserves a jewel-like setting, and you should not crowd it with development on both sides,” Surber said.

At the conclusion of the meeting, institute official Todd chuckled when asked whether the group’s overwhelmingly positive report could have been influenced, perhaps subconsciously, by the members’ desire to be “good guests” to their San Diego hosts, who paid $100,000 to bring them here.

“We don’t worry about that; the ULI tells it like it is,” he said. “There have been times when the reports have . . . not been so favorable . . . . But we found a lot to be positive and upbeat about in San Diego. What’s here now is a good start, and the potential is just incredible.”