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As the designated economist for the Centre City Development Corp. in several of the condemnation actions affecting the Ballpark District Downtown, I have had the opportunity to explore in depth the past and imminent future of the area known as East Village.

The East Village community’s 115 or so blocks are bounded roughly by the Gaslamp Quarter on the west, the southern boundary of City College on the north, Interstate 5 on the east, and the harbor on the south. The Ballpark District encompasses 27 blocks of East Village. The rest is largely up for grabs. And grabbed it will be, as dozens of square blocks of East Village are now owned or in escrow or on option to be acquired for new and exciting residential and commercial developments.

In a recent condemnation action, CCDC’s attorneys, Daley & Heft, produced a map of East Village showing that the area houses more than three dozen social service agencies, with St. Vincent de Paul at the epicenter. These agencies dispense food and provide housing, counseling and other social services to thousands of San Diego’s underserved citizens. In addition to the social services, East Village also houses thousands in its older single-room occupancy residences and in the several modern establishments for modest-income seniors, most of them operated by the Salvation Army and other religious-affiliated organizations.

In a recent MarketPoint study of SROs Downtown, we counted 115 sites with more than 5,900 rooms. Of those, more than 85 percent were in East Village. As you might suspect, the vacancy rate in the SROs and senior residences is zero, often with waiting lists. The SRO demand will be exacerbated by the removal of more than 500 rooms from three hotels when the new federal courthouse addition gets under way next year.

The parts of East Village not serving the poor are occupied largely by older industrial buildings, housing many of the firms that service Downtown tourism, business and much of the art/culture community.

Given that snapshot of the East Village, it is somewhat difficult to envision what will take place there during the next decade and within the next three or four years.

The most obvious and imminent of the developments will be the new 46,000-seat ballpark, inclusive of a wonderful two-acre park outside center field. Thanks to the JMI organization, the ballpark will be immediately surrounded by three new hotels: a 512-room Westin Hotel topped by two dozen opulent skyboxes (condominiums); a 203-room Amerisuites Hotel and a 150-room boutique hotel. In the same vicinity will be more than 1 million square feet of office space, retail and entertainment properties. And immediately outside the ballpark to the north will be Doug Wilson’s smashing 300-unit Parkloft condominium project, the first 120 units of which are now under construction.

More than 2,000 new rental units are being planned for East Village, including 900 units by the JMI and Monarch groups, as well as hundreds more by Avalon Bay and Chelsea Investment Group. With rare exception, all of these projects are focused on the upscale adult market.

Many condominium projects also are in the wind. With Intracorp, MB Financial, deFreitas and others busily drawing plans, more than 1,000 new condominium units may be under way in the next 24 months. Like the rental units, virtually all the condominium projects are focused on the affluent yuppie, young upwardly mobile professional, and grumpie, grown-up mature professional markets, most of whom are dinks, dual income, no kids. Excuse the acronyms, but they are not only expedient, but remarkably accurate descriptions of the Downtown market-rate housing.

Most projects in East Village will be aimed at the sector of the urban market that would be most content to live in the near-in suburbs if anyone built condominiums there. But few do, leaving a wide-open market for the Downtown developers. Condominiums and rentals in East Village, for the most part, will be priced competitively, somewhat below that of the other Downtown markets. A perfect niche. Those new upscale developments are destined to dramatically convert the East Village resident profile to one whose beverage of choice requires a corkscrew rather than a screw-off cap.

The change will have another effect on Downtown. These new developments will produce an enormous number of property tax dollars for CCDC as well as hotel and sales tax dollars for the city. In our firm’s recent analysis, the implications are staggering. In the next 10 years, we have projected that Downtown development will total $10 billion in the private sector and produce property taxes in excess of $600 million. Most of that revenue will be produced in East Village.

And, an aside for those who read only Don Bauder and about Bruce Henderson: when the ballpark’s self-amortizing bonds are retired, the city (not John Moores) will own the ballpark free and clear. The naysayers forget to tell you that.

With all the excitement generated in East Village in the next few years, we still have to consider what to do about Downtown’s poor. They will not go away; they must be accommodated. The Good Book and Father Joe both know that for a fact. Perhaps it is time for the city fathers to come to grips with the issue and determine if it is possible to accommodate all the poor Downtown or if an effort should be made to geographically diversify housing and social services. It’s convenient to be able to monitor all the social services on foot, but maybe, just maybe, the poor and the city would benefit by spreading the poor, just as the city spreads its wealth.

In overall balance, East Village will be an economic powerhouse in the coming decade, with as much allure as is now being generated in the Marina District, Little Italy, Cortez Hill and Bankers Hill. Do yourself a favor. Drive around East Village and let your imagination run wild. You still won’t be able to envision what really will happen in the very foreseeable future. But it will give you incredible perspective when you make that same drive 10 years from now.

Alan Nevin is director of economic research with Marketpoint Realty Advisors, a consultancy providing real estate and demographic statistics, feasibility studies and litigation support to the California land use industry and legal professions.