Solar’s Plan Needs Study

Solar Turbines Inc. jolted the city last week when it unveiled an intriguing plan for a $300-million complex of offices, stores, a hotel, a marina, a park and two man-made islands to replace its bayfront manufacturing plant at Harbor Drive and Laurel Street.

Anyone who has been to Lindbergh Field is familiar with the plant, an important employer but a structure that adds no grace to the waterfront. Our first reaction was that a complex planned by the designers of Boston’s Faneuil Hall and Baltimore’s Harbor Place, surely would be an aesthetic improvement. And well it might.

But before there is any major change in the use of this prime piece of publicly owned land, at least two major questions need answering: What is the best use of the land and is Solar, its long-term tenant, the company to develop it?

Solar, which is in the last five years of a 60-year lease, was looking for conceptual approval and negotiating rights when it brought its plans to the Board of Port Commissioners. But any specific plans, it seems to us, are premature until the commission and the San Diego City Council first decide how the 28-acre parcel fits into the city’s overall plans for downtown. Waterfront land is probably San Diego’s most precious, and a decision to grant a lease that would run through 2059 can’t be done lightly.

Correctly, the commission referred the matter for more study. Any other decision would hardly have been consistent with good planning.

Few outside of Solar apparently had any idea of the scope of the request, which surprised even city officials.

Officials with the San Diego Unified Port District, which is trustee for the state land, say there was nothing unusual or out of order about Solar’s request, that developers frequently bring them unsolicited ideas and expensively drawn up plans. They say that the standard, extensive review process by several government bodies would give the city plenty of time for input.

But what concerns us is that there might be a tacit presumption that Solar, by dint of its long-term tenancy, should have first rights to develop the property. At least one commission member said he could have envisioned possible conceptual approval of Solar’s plan within two to three months. Such a short time frame hardly seems sufficient to answer the preliminary question of best use, or to allow competitive bidding by other developers.

Solar’s plan may well emerge as the best. But while master plans for downtown are still being debated, any approval of such a massive project would be foolish.

San Diego has the chance to come up with a comprehensive plan for its waterfront, and that should include the public lands under the port’s trust.

While the port’s process may have been business as usual, this waterfront land is very unusual and deserves uncommon consideration.