Trimble Leaving a Newer, Better Downtown Behind

As much as anyone--and certainly more than most--Gerald Trimble is the architect behind the dramatic emergence of the new downtown San Diego.

For more than 10 years, as the first and only head of the city’s downtown redevelopment agency, he did what was necessary to make it happen. If it meant filling a political power vacuum while City Hall was in disarray, he did it, not tentatively but with relish.

If it meant keeping some of his own board of directors in the dark at times and being secretive with the press, he did that, too. Though, ironically, in contrast to even the most gregarious of public officials, Trimble continues to list his home number in the phone book.

He was at times abrasive and difficult, and always crisply businesslike. He was smart and he was tough. He coaxed. He pulled. He pushed. And he dragged developers where they didn’t want to go: 325 acres of urban desert.

Now, they come to him.

Above all else, Trimble was successful. In a job where the only kind of accomplishments that count are the ones you can see, where bricks and mortar are the measure of success, he and his Centre City Development Corp. team fashioned more than a billion dollars’ worth of downtown development--embodied in office high-rises, apartments and condominiums and, the crown jewel of it all, the $140-million Horton Plaza.

He was well-paid for his efforts, earning a salary of $105,322 a year, making him one of the highest-paid public officials in the city.

Now, Trimble is leaving. In a few weeks, he will begin a new job at his alma mater, the University of Southern California--where he graduated in 1960 with a degree in education/psychology--as president and chief executive officer of the university’s new Real Estate Development Corp.

In a wide-ranging interview, he talked about the last 11 years, the future of downtown development and CCDC’s role in that, the threats to continued revitalization, the walling off of the waterfront, the problem of underground toxic chemicals, housing and the Gaslamp Quarter. What follows is Trimble’s view of downtown development issues.

Threats:

While downtown’s turnaround is one of urban America’s biggest success stories, and there now appears to be in place a “critical mass” of structures that are creating an independent momentum for continued development, downtown in many ways is still a fragile entity. Trimble says it would be folly for officials to believe anything less, to become complacent now that the initial hurdles have been scaled.

“Cities go through phases . . . where in the early years of a revitalization . . . both the public and private sector are worried enough to make things happen, to take some risks to make the turnaround work,” he said. “And more often than not, too soon in a revitalization effort the public sector begins to think they are too successful, and taking that attitude really hurts this kind of real estate development.

“I saw this city doing that right after Horton Plaza opened (in August, 1985). The attitude that ‘OK, now Horton Plaza is opened and there is no need for CCDC anymore, no need to do anything . . . the redevelopment effort is finished. The private sector will take it from here.’

“Well, that’s absurd. It’s not true. Horton Plaza helped. Horton Plaza puts us in a situation where we had more leverage. But it certainly didn’t end things.”

A more recognizable threat, though, is the possible loss of a substantial number of courtrooms downtown, as the county--faced with a space crunch--looks at moving courtrooms to the suburbs, Trimble said. If the courts move, it would definitely affect the absorption of office space downtown.

“Now I think there’s going to be courthouse development in outlying areas, that’s to be expected. I think if there really is a reduction in the number of courts in the inner city here and a great expansion in the outlying areas, that’s what’s going to hurt,” Trimble said.

In an effort to head off an exodus, Trimble and CCDC Assistant Vice President Pam Hamilton recently met with all the county supervisors, and Mayor Maureen O’Connor has sent a letter to both the supervisors and Norman Hickey, the county’s chief administrator, “indicating CCDC would be willing to assist the county in doing what’s necessary to expand the courts.”

“We haven’t defined exactly what that means, but we’ll do what we can,” he said. “Maybe it means expanding the Columbia (Redevelopment Area), maybe allocation of some (special tax financing) in the future to the expansion of the courts, or CCDC acting as a development entity for the county . . . in some kind of lease-back arrangement, or some joint powers-type approach. . . . We made the offer, it’s just a matter of pursuing that.”

Gaslamp Quarter:

One of the major focuses of downtown’s revitalization has been the 16 1/2-block Gaslamp Quarter Historic District, where, more and more, CCDC has become involved. For all of the effort, though, the Gaslamp is still a hit-and-miss proposition, according to business people and developers there, with nearly as many businesses closing as are being opened.

“Gaslamp is going really the only way it can go, up,” Trimble said. “I don’t know if it can go an awful lot faster until you have the convention center and the hotels at one end and Horton Plaza at the other. Then you really begin to create a reason for people to move back and forth. It is a big restoration project. So it’s very hard to concentrate when it’s eight blocks (long) and in a linear plan. That’s a tough problem.”

As for the abundance of X-rated bookstores and movie theaters in the Gaslamp, Trimble believes that as long as they don’t dominate and overwhelm, the city shouldn’t be too worried.

“I don’t think I (ever) said that we need to get every one of the adult entertainment uses out of the Gaslamp Quarter. I think it would be rather antiseptic if you eliminate every single one of those uses,” said Trimble. “I mean . . . if some of those uses remain and the exterior of the building--from a design standpoint, and the signing--is handled in a way that is not offensive, so what?”

Waterfront:

As the headlong rush to develop downtown and the bayfront continues unabated, there is a growing concern among some downtown residents and others that both access to and views of San Diego Bay are being cut off by a growing curtain of high-rise hotels, offices and residential buildings. Trimble says the “walling off” is part of the price the city has to pay for the convention center, for example, and that despite the new high-rises, there are still enough streets, such as Broadway, Ash and Market, where “you’ll be able to see water.”

“(There’s) nothing we can do about walling the waterfront,” he says. “The Port District is doing it. I mean there will be big, massive buildings right along the edge we have absolutely no control over. If you read the redevelopment plan, they have total discretion (over) development of the tidelands. There’s nothing the city redevelopment agency or CCDC can do about it. And I think the convention center is going to establish a very, very large building that will block a lot of views unless you’re in a high-rise building.

“Am I concerned about it?--Nah. I mean there are other places where views can be obtained. I think we need the convention center very badly. So that’s part of the price that we’ll pay for it. . . . I think it’s normal that you are going to have this kind of controversy because there are a lot of people who have purchased condominiums and people who are downtown here who would like to have it low-rise. Everybody is entitled to their opinion about that.”

Housing:

A critical component in downtown’s rebirth has been the construction of housing, primarily 4,000 condominiums and apartments in the Marina Redevelopment Area south of Horton Plaza. Until a couple of years ago, there was concern that the housing effort--which still requires substantial government subsidy--was taking a back seat to the development of Horton Plaza and offices. As recently as 1986, there was some skepticism about Trimble’s commitment to Marina-area housing, a criticism he says was unfair. If anything, Trimble now talks boldly of creating 5,000 units and how the Marina urban design plan, the official document designating land for housing development, has made believers out of the uncommitted.

“There’s nothing wrong with residential in an urban area,” he said. “I think the public sector is going to stand by that commitment. I don’t think there is any question about it. There was a question about it three years ago. That’s why we started the urban design plan. If (it) is never approved, I think what we achieved with that is . . . the fact people are now committed, solidly, virtually everybody, to downtown residential. It’s a new theme. Play the record three years ago.”

Expansion of CCDC:

Although some, such as former CCDC board member Peter Davis, believe CCDC was never intended to exist in perpetuity, Trimble says it’s likely the agency will expand, probably to Centre City East, perhaps to take in more of the Gaslamp Quarter, perhaps in other downtown areas as well. The downside of any expansion, such as one to Centre City East--which would more than double CCDC’s territory--would be the possible dilution of the agency’s strongest suit: Its ability to focus on a few particular projects.

“I think it would be a concern that the corporation not become too large because when you go into expansions of Centre City East, Columbia and do all these things, it isn’t enough just to add employees, it takes top talent to deal with all these things,” Trimble said. “You can’t hire a bunch of planners and real estate people to do it.”

Davis, who served on the CCDC board longer than anyone, nine years, says he’s worried that a CCDC expansion--which would take City Council approval--would deprive other agencies such as schools and the county of needed tax money that would instead go to pay for redevelopment efforts for many years.

“CCDC was created as an ad hoc group with an approximately 20-year life,” Davis said in a recent interview. “At some point, the momentum (CCDC-spurred development) has created will be enough.”

Toxics:

In the last year, Trimble and CCDC have faced a new and troublesome problem, the existence of a 460,000-gallon lake of gasoline and diesel fuel 19 feet below the ground in the Marina area.

While plans are under way to remove the contamination, questions about liability and who ultimately will pay the cleanup costs will linger in the future, particularly if CCDC does expand into Centre City East, where junkyards, metal plating services, above- and below-ground fuel and chemical storage tanks have existed for many years.

“One of the first things that needs to be done is some testing, some scanning of the problems,” Trimble said. “I think you may have a lot of problems, not just gasoline problems, (but) you can have other things. Think of all these different uses, whether it’s a plating yard or whatever . . . what’s being poured into the ground.

“CCDC will get involved but that doesn’t eliminate the property owners’ responsibility . . . we deal with that ahead of time. We build (that responsibility) into the (development) documents and all those things.”

Now that Trimble is leaving, there are others who say that, while he may have been the right man at the right time to pull downtown out of its doldrums, it’s time for more balance, and for others to play a larger role in setting the agency’s agenda.

Lawyer Bill Sauls lives downtown and is a member of the new CCDC-formed residents advisory committee, which will analyze and make recommendations on projects under consideration. He remembers just two years ago, when Trimble was extremely reluctant to create yet another step in the development review process, a step that Trimble felt might scare developers away.

But the residents continued to push, and, in time, as new members were seated on the City Council and the CCDC board, and the city Planning Department sided with the citizens, there was a convergence of new opinions about the role of residents in downtown’s growth. Last year, Trimble “came to the realization it was now time,” Sauls said.

“Absolutely, Jerry’s greatest strength was that he provided unequivocal leadership when others may not have been willing to do so--mayors, council members or others. That also became his ultimate weakness. He wanted to do things his way and wanted to limit input, parenthesis interference, by others,” Sauls said.

“I think the biggest opportunity we have in getting a new person on board,” Sauls said, is to fill the position with “a person who can personify the can-do personality (Trimble) is, (and finding) someone who is ready to see and accept the involvement of others.”

As for Trimble’s legacy, the easy answer is to point to Horton Plaza, as most people will do. But not Trimble. To highlight Horton Plaza by itself, he says, is to ignore everything else CCDC has done, without which the glitzy shopping center would never have been built.

“If I had focused all of my energy on Horton Plaza and nothing else, it wouldn’t have happened,” Trimble said. “You think about that a little bit. The fact that we did not do just Horton Plaza but a whole series of other things and brought that together on a comprehensive basis and made development occur . . . residential development, office, and the fact we were able to bring in the amenities.

“That’s what I think the important thing has been, the breadth, the comprehensiveness of it.”