Council Creates Chinese Historic District : But Fate of 3 Buildings in the Downtown Area Remains in Doubt

Twenty downtown buildings, the remnants of San Diego’s turn-of-the-century Chinatown, were officially designated as a Chinese-Asian Historic District by the City Council on Tuesday.

But council members put off until next month the most pressing questions--whether to exclude from the historic district the Regal and Anita hotels, as well as the Chinese Mission Building.

Goodwill Industries, which is in the process of selling the hotels, has argued that its property is too deteriorated to rehabilitate. Developer Charles P. Tyson, who owns the Mission Building, which is in the middle of the block south of Horton Plaza, wants to demolish the old church to make way for a 450-unit residential and commercial high-rise.

Councilwoman Celia Ballesteros, whose district includes the new historic district, said during Tuesday’s public hearing that she is optimistic an agreement can be worked out with both property owners to preserve the buildings and eventually include them in the historic district.

A ‘Very Happy Day’

“I think in 30 days we will have a resolution,” she said.

Dorothy Hom, a member of the city’s historic site board, said the council’s unanimous vote to form the historic district made Tuesday a “very happy day” for the local Chinese community, which numbers about 50,000 people.

Unlike major West Coast cities such as Los Angeles, Seattle and San Francisco, San Diego has had no officially designated Chinatown, although it had a downtown Chinese district during the turn of the century. Most of the buildings in the district were destroyed in 1915 as part of a civic cleanup for the Panama Exposition.

Momentum for a historic district began building last year, however, when questions arose about what to do with the run-down remnants of the old Chinese District, part of which has been designed for downtown redevelopment.

Hom said Tuesday that members of the local Chinese community signed petitions and worked for historic preservation of the buildings after a consultant for the Centre City Development Corporation, the city’s downtown redevelopment arm, suggested there was little community interest in keeping some of the buildings around.

City Asked to Consider Sites

CCDC, in turn, asked the city to examine possible historic designation for the remaining buildings, which are located generally in an area south of Martin Luther King Way, west of Sixth Avenue, north of J Street and east of Second Avenue.

In April and May, the city’s Historical Site Board voted to put the 22 building sites from the old Chinatown on the local and national register of historic places. Such a historic designation would require a City Council vote if a property owner wanted to alter or raze a building.

Although some of the structures are dilapidated and are not architecturally significant, the board said the historic district should be formed because the buildings were remnants of the earlier Chinese and Asian community.

Tuesday’s vote put the 20 buildings on the local historic register, and council members will decide Nov. 10 whether to also include them in an application for the national register.

Also at that hearing, council members will decide whether to include the hotels and the Mission Building. CCDC board members have suggested removing the Mission Building from next to Horton Plaza and reconstructing it at another site.