Project in Chula Vista Draws Ohs, Ahs, Ughs : Mixed Reviews Greet Nature Center

City officials call it irrefutable proof of Chula Vista’s commitment to preserving wetlands and their inhabitants. Environmentalists call it a garish monstrosity built in an ecologically fragile spot that should have no buildings on it at all.

As such opposing views illustrate, the $2.2-million Chula Vista Nature Interpretive Center made its long-awaited debut to decidedly mixed reviews Saturday.

Perched on a two-acre site in an area of Chula Vista’s bayfront known as Gunpowder Point, the center is billed by city officials as a “living museum” designed to educate the public about Sweetwater Marsh and its diverse range of indigenous plant and animal life.

Chula Vista officials boast that there is no equivalent nature center anywhere in San Diego County, a region blessed with a relative abundance of coastal wetlands. And they note with pride that the dramatic shoreline complex was the first project undertaken by the city after the state Coastal Commission approved development on the bayfront in 1984.

‘Very Proud’

“The first permit we issued was not for a hotel or restaurant or industrial building but for this center,” Chula Vista Mayor Greg Cox said. “We’re very proud of it. It will be a community resource that will have star quality and will draw people from all over the area.”

But leaders of the Sierra Club, which has waged a bitter legal battle with Chula Vista over the city’s plans to build a 400-room hotel on Gunpowder Point, are skeptical. Although they endorse the educational aspects of nature centers, many environmentalists object to development of any kind on the sensitive wedge of wetlands.

Two federally listed endangered birds--the California least tern and the light-footed clapper rail--nest in the Sweetwater Marsh, and the Belding’s savannah sparrow, protected under state law, also frequents the area.

“I’m greeting the opening of this center with much trepidation,” said Liz Copper, a Coronado ornithologist who has studied the Sweetwater Marsh. “There will be increased public use of the area and I can only hope the city manages it wisely. Unfortunately, their track record does not inspire me with great confidence.”

Indeed, some Sierra Club activists claim the much-ballyhooed center is merely a slickly packaged public relations ploy designed to mask a legacy of environmental insults perpetrated by the South Bay city.

“I’d have to say it distresses me that they’d build an expensive edifice to house stuffed birds at the expense of live ones,” said Sierra Club activist Joan Jackson. “It seems to me they’re more concerned about making a big splash than in really preserving the endangered species and their habitat.”

Aesthetics Issue

And then there’s the issue of aesthetics.

The center is large--10,200 square feet--and, in Jackson’s words, “pink and green and just ghastly.” It has lots of windows, allowing a view of the marsh from almost anywhere inside, and high beamed ceilings, but it just doesn’t seem to fit in on the briny, desolate shore of San Diego Bay, critics say.

“It’s kind of Horton Plaza-ish, you know, lots of pastels and that sort of thing,” Copper said. “Pastels are all the rage, I guess, but generally you think of nature centers as blending in with the environment. This doesn’t blend.”

Yet another controversy surrounds an exhibit inside the center, which was designed by Winn and Cutri Architects of San Diego. While praise has been showered upon the designers’ innovative portrayal of tidal mud flats, the “bat ray petting pool” has caused quite a stir.

According to one volunteer, officials wanted to remove stingers from bat rays--which have a diamond-shaped head and resemble stingrays--and place them in a pool for children to pet. But the proposal raised the ire of biologists. At last check the dispute was unresolved.

Festive Opening

Such cynicism notwithstanding, Mayor Cox and other civic leaders were not about to let anything stand in the way of the center’s unveiling. On Thursday night, a black-tie “gala premiere” with cocktails, hors d’oeuvres and entertainment was held at the center--at $75 a head. Another official--but more casual--dedication followed Saturday afternoon.

Cox said the center--which includes exhibits of animal and plant life, an auditorium, two classrooms and a bookstore--will be run by three paid staff members plus a small army of volunteers. Despite criticism of its architecture, the center’s design was the product of a competition judged by a committee of local residents.

Initial funding for the project came from the Chula Vista Redevelopment Agency, which provided $1.8 million, and the state’s Environmental License Plate Fund, but future support will be through an assessment district system that collects fees from properties developed in the bayfront area.

The operation will be managed by the Bayfront Conservancy Trust, which has representatives from local and state agencies as well as the development community and the public at large.

Cox, who calls the center a “personally exciting project for me,” said he feels criticism by environmentalists is unjustified.

“I would challenge the Sierra Club or any other group that’s critical of it to show the people of Chula Vista what they’ve done for the environment,” Cox said. “What we have done is build a center that illustrates the importance of these wetlands. It will be a premier educational and research facility unrivaled in the county. What have they done?”

If the Sweetwater Marsh was “a pristine area that hadn’t been degraded by 80 or 90 years of industrial use, then maybe I could see their point. But it’s not pristine and we’re doing our part to get it cleaned up and healthy.”

Controversy over the center is only the latest tiff in the long-running battle between Chula Vista and environmentalists, who oppose the city’s dogged efforts to convert the marsh into a tourist-serving area that will enhance its image and municipal bankroll.

Bayfront Site

Plans for the bayfront--the 400-acre remnant of the more than 3,000 acres of marshland that once framed San Diego Bay--date to 1970, but for years Chula Vista was barred from building by the state Coastal Commission.

In March, 1984, the commission finally approved the city’s local coastal plan, a master blueprint for bayfront development, but legal challenges by the Sierra Club have stalled the building since then.

One lawsuit pending in San Diego County Superior Court alleges that the commission’s approval was unlawful because members were improperly lobbied during their deliberations, said Larry Silver, an attorney for the Sierra Club’s Legal Defense Fund in San Francisco.

The suit also alleges that parts of the local coastal plan violate the state Coastal Act by allowing construction on Gunpowder Point and another area at the foot of D Street, along with improvements to dirt roads that provide access to the area.