Center’s Design Catches On

Horton Plaza’s whimsical, and evidently practical, design seems to have caught the fancy of municipalities around the country that want an alternative to traditional urban renewal projects.

“I don’t consider myself a shopper . . . but Horton Plaza is an exciting, fun place to be,” acknowledged Redmond, Wash., Mayor Doreen Marchione, a former San Diegan who has visited Horton Plaza during two recent Southern California trips.

Redmond city leaders have been supervising development of a mall planned for a 120-acre golf course that fronts on the city’s downtown.

Civic leaders, who have demanded that half of the tract’s 120 acres remain open, are adamant that the developer not build a “a big mall that sits in the middle of acres and acres of asphalt,” said Marchione, who lived in San Diego during the 1960s.

“What we don’t want is a walled fortress that . . . kills the rest of downtown,” said Marchione, who praised the Ernest W. Hahn organization for successfully integrating Horton Plaza into San Diego’s downtown.