Consultants to Take Broad Look at Development : Study Won’t Focus on Navy’s Bayfront Plans

A $75,000 planning study that began as a result of the Navy’s proposal to build a massive office and hotel complex along the San Diego waterfront will not specifically focus on the Navy’s proposal but will instead evaluate general development plans along a broad swath of the bayfront, the study’s authors said Wednesday.

There is also no guarantee that the study, after it’s completed sometime this summer, will be used by any of the agencies who are helping to fund it, according to the consultants, the NBBJ Group of Seattle.

The hope is, however, that by identifying a broad range of development strategies for the bayfront, such as appropriate land uses and an overall vision for an area, the Navy--as well as other developers--will use the information in developing master plans for their projects.

It was clear from comments made by those in the sparse audience that attended the first public hearing on the study that many people thought the study would more directly focus on the Navy’s proposal, which calls for converting its downtown naval base and supply center into a 6,000-worker regional “corporate headquarters” involving about 4 million square feet of high-rise offices and hotels.

‘Sense of Community’

Mike McLaughlin, a planner with SANDAG, the public agency coordinating the study, told the group gathered at the Community Concourse that it is expected that the study will provide a basis for building a “sense of community” on the waterfront for the five public agencies underwriting the study, all of whom have a stake in how the area develops.

“We hope we produce something that the (five) entities will have to respond to . . . with the Navy being the first test case,” McLaughlin said. “But no one should leave here thinking” the agencies will automatically embrace the study.

The five agencies paying for the planning study are the Navy, the San Diego Unified Port District, the Centre City Development Corp., the city and the county. Each agency paid $15,000.

Bill Sanford, the NBBJ project director for the study, said his group intends to look at proposed development in an area bounded by Hawthorn Street, 8th Avenue, Kettner Boulevard, Harbor Drive and the bay.

So far, he said, about 10 million square feet of offices, hotels and other kinds of construction have been proposed over the next two decades on about 270 acres of the area, including 4 million square feet each by the Navy and Santa Fe Pacific Realty Corp.

“The Navy is only one part of it,” Sanford said during a break in the meeting. “The Navy is an important part of it but not all of it. To only focus on the Navy would be to only focus on half of all the development proposed on the central bayfront.”

Sanford’s group is in the midst of a three-day series of workshops, scheduled to end Friday, in which comments are being heard from private developers, the public, public planning officials, the Navy and other agencies such as the Port District.

He said the consultants will hold two more such three-day sessions before completing the study. The next session is scheduled for mid-May.