More Open Space for Balboa Park : Only 3 of Navy’s 42 Buildings Will Remain When City Gets Land Back

All but three of the 42 old Navy Hospital buildings in Balboa Park will be torn down, the City Council voted Monday, dashing hopes of historic preservationists and groups who wanted to use the structures.

The unanimous vote to preserve only the old Navy chapel, the administration building and a newer medical library-auditorium building came after nearly two hours of public testimony.

Attempts by Councilwoman Judy McCarty to save another, newer structure--a clinic building--as a temporary home for Park Department employees was voted down by a 6-3 margin, with Councilman Bill Cleator and Councilwoman Gloria McColl supporting McCarty. The structure, known as Building 29, had been recommended for preservation by the Public Facilities and Recreation Committee last month by a 5-0 vote.

But Mayor Maureen O’Connor made it clear that she preferred that only one or two of the Navy Hospital structures be spared from the bulldozer. She pointed out that she was on the City Council in 1979 when the land swap with the Navy was proposed.

“It was dedicated to park use under the original agreement and that is the way things should go,” O’Connor said. However, she bowed to majority sentiment that the historic chapel and administration building should remain, along with the library building.

The council ordered that Navy officials be notified of the decision to eliminate 39 of the buildings so that they can begin demolition as soon as possible. The Inspiration Point site where the old military hospital is located will not revert to city ownership officially until June, 1988.

Jeanne Davies, a spokeswoman for the Sierra Club, told the council, “You are going in the right direction, but you haven’t gotten there yet.” She argued, “We do not need a park full of buildings, we need a park full of park.”

Former San Diego City Manager Kimball Moore cited the “promise made to voters” that the land turned over by the Navy, in exchange for a Florida Canyon site for a new hospital, would be cleared by the Navy, landscaped and returned to park purposes.

“Our growing population requires every square foot of Balboa Park for open space use,” he said.

The council agreed to preserve the formal courtyards and palm trees on the 50-acre site but sent several unresolved issues back to its Public Facilities and Recreation Committee for further study, including reduction of parking lots on the site, location of the police horse stables there and future uses for the administration building.

The issue has been debated by various committees, boards and an ad hoc task force over the last two years. Each came out with a different recommendation. The city’s Balboa Park Master Plan recommends retaining six of the structures, building two 50,000-square-foot multipurpose buildings, two large pavilions, a 250-car parking garage and a major restaurant on the site.

McCarty admitted that the medical clinic building she sought to save is ugly and blocks the view, but she pointed out that the city does not have the money to waste in building new structures to house its park workers and should save the structurally sound building until other quarters can be found.