Trolley to Wind Through Center : Great American Plans Hotel, Tower Near Depot

The forest of high-rises growing in downtown San Diego is expected to become a bit thicker and taller with the unveiling Friday of plans for Great American Plaza, the centerpiece of which is a distinctive 33-story tower with a beveled, trellis-like roof.

The massive $200-million project, across Kettner Boulevard from the historic Santa Fe Depot and spread over two blocks, from Broadway to B Street, will include a 15-story, 276-suite hotel.

But perhaps the most striking feature is a pathway planned for the trolley, which will snake through the center of the project, linking the C Street trolley corridor to the future Bayside Line and its connections to the southern bayfront, the new convention center and Seaport Village.

Snake Through the Center

It is anything but an idle, passive, benches-only transit station. As proposed by Chicago-based architect Helmut Jahn, the trolley will travel through a curving 50-foot-wide, 50-foot-tall canopy of steel girders and opaque glass and be surrounded by two stories of retail stores.

The idea, said Jahn, an internationally recognized architect of high-rise buildings, is to blend the feel of a cosmopolitan, European train station with the Surf City clime of San Diego.

The trolley station will be connected to the 600,000-square-foot office tower, which will house the headquarters of Great American First Savings Bank, and provided Jahn with usable space for people on the ground floor. It was “fortunate we had (the) problem to deal with the trolley,” said Jahn, adding that “the activity (it brings) becomes a positive aspect,” enhancing the project.

The 853,000-square-foot complex appears to be the last step along a bumpy road that began in June, 1987, when Starboard Development Corp. unveiled plans for an office tower and hotel on the site, which is in the Columbia Redevelopment Area.

Since then, the development has gone through several configurations and partners. At one point, Starboard was on the way out when Centre City Development Corp., the city’s downtown redevelopment agency, came close to turning the project over to a competitor.

But Starboard weathered that storm and its plans, which at one time envisioned a county court facility, changed for what appears to be the last time when Great American First Savings Bank entered the picture.

Great American had been negotiating with Santa Fe Southern Pacific Corp. for a 30-story headquarters building at the corner of Broadway and Pacific Coast Highway, a block away from the Starboard site. When those negotiations failed in May, Great American turned to Starboard and the two San Diego-based groups signed a preliminary agreement.

As planned, Great American Development Co., the S&L;’s wholly owned development arm, will form two joint-venture partnerships with Starboard to build both the office tower and the hotel, which will be operated by Guest Quarters, part of Beacon Hotel Corp. of Boston. Great American will occupy 120,000 square feet in the office tower.

The tower will gradually narrow as it rises and will be encased in light gray granite and blue-gray glass.

The roof, which will be beveled and come to a point, will be a unique addition to San Diego’s skyline. It will consist of light-colored, trellis-like material that Jahn said will allow air and light to filter through.

Gordon C. Luce, chairman and chief executive officer of Great American, said, “We didn’t want to do a project that San Diego wouldn’t be proud of,” noting that the company has been in downtown San Diego for 103 years.

Among the buildings that Jahn and his firm, Murphy/Jahn, have designed include One Liberty Place in Philadelphia, Northwestern Atrium Center in Chicago, Park Avenue Tower in New York, United Airlines Terminal 1 complex at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, The Tower on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Civic Center Plaza, and the Messeturm Frankfurt, in Frankfurt, Germany. When completed in 1991, Messeturm Frankfurt will be Europe’s tallest office building at nearly 850 feet.

‘Great Part of City’

Speaking of his Great American design, Jahn said he wanted to construct a signature edifice that “becomes more than a building . . . but a great part of the city.”

Working with Murphy/Jahn will be the San Diego architectural firm of Krommenhoek/McKeown & Associates. The lead architect on the all-suites hotel will be the Architects Collaborative of San Francisco and Cambridge, joined by the San Diego architectural company of Delawie/Bretton/Wilkes Associates.

The complex, spread over about three acres, will contain 40,000 square feet of restaurant, retail and museum space. The Children’s Museum, now in a La Jolla shopping center, is expected to move to the plaza. The complex will have three levels of underground parking for 1,400 vehicles.

Work on laying the trolley tracks is expected to begin in January, so that the Bayside Line can meet its anticipated opening early the following year. But ground breaking on the office and hotel, which are to be built simultaneously, won’t occur until May. The project is expected to be completed by fall of 1991.

The development will be reviewed by CCDC.

The Great American project is the latest of several high-rise developments currently under construction or planned for the west end of Broadway, an area once rife with tattoo parlors and honky-tonks that is now the hottest commercial property downtown, offering commanding views of the bay.