Anchor” is a term used to define those real estate projects that are of such scale and importance they attract a market from which all that surrounds them will benefit. In 1985 Horton Plaza anchored the Downtown renaissance. Downtown employees, residents and tourists make the shopping center prosperous. It needed to be special, and it was, with its unique, vertical architecture and tenant mix. It is a festival center masquerading as a regional shopping center. It has been much emulated and copied throughout the nation.

The original San Diego Convention Center brought people from all over the globe to Downtown. It was the most important source of stability and prosperity for the Gaslamp Quarter, which continues to benefit from the throngs strolling from Harbor Drive up Fifth Avenue. The thousands of hotel rooms built since its first phase opened in 1989 are occupied principally by conventioneers.

What both projects have in common is that they serve as “anchors” to attract consumers to the Downtown market.

Petco Park is principally for locals, making it a unique anchor.

Because of this, one can argue Petco is the most important project in the modern history of Downtown San Diego. Hype? Not really. Consider this:

Two Downtowns

San Diego has at least two Downtowns, one on the west, the other on the east, divided in the middle by the Gaslamp Quarter. The west, particularly the Marina District, but also including Little Italy and Columbia, is widely considered the premium location because of its proximity to views of the water. Homebuyers and businesses eagerly pay top dollar to be in those neighborhoods.

The west came first in Downtown redevelopment. The east, what used to be known as Centre City East but became East Village, always has been the blue-collar stepcousin. Perhaps it would have redeveloped ultimately because of the build-out of the west and the expansion of the Gaslamp. But without Petco Park it could never redevelop at the speed we are now witnessing.

This sizzling pace can be credited to Petco Park and to JMI Realty Inc., the master developer of the 26-block Ballpark District. Beginning this month Petco’s ballgames will attract about 3 million visitors throughout the spring and summer. Most of those visitors will be San Diego County residents. Relatively few people will travel to San Diego (except the visiting team) to catch a Padres game, unless they already are visiting here or attending a convention at the center a few blocks away.

These local visits will generate repeat visits, and not just to ballgames. Once a larger regional audience visits Petco Park and becomes comfortable with Downtown, frequent visitors will follow to restaurants, retailers and tourist attractions. This bodes well, for instance, for the Midway Aircraft Carrier Museum, slated to open in June.

Neither Horton Plaza nor the Convention Center, as important as they are, can command this impact.

Downtown residential developers understand this. They have developed, or are now constructing about 2,600 residential units in the East Village alone, almost double any other district. Activity draws activity. This “agglomeration” economic event eventually will bring more retail and services to the East Village.

Technology Firms Will Come

New employment anchors also will emerge in the East Village. Technology sectors are not the exclusive province of the suburbs like Torrey Pines Mesa, Sorrento Mesa and Carmel Valley. Downtown ultimately will attract them because the infrastructure is here (read fiber optics in the ground), the marketing push is emerging (the Centre City Development Corp. and the Downtown Partnership are allying with the Economic Development Corp. to push their territory to the techies) and the dirt is here.

Fully or partially developable are 50 city blocks, almost all in the East Village. That adds up to about 2.6 million square feet of developable land including parking lots, vacant parcels, dilapidated commercial and old warehouses, vestigial remainders of the old Centre City East.

This property can accommodate development of 23 million square feet of commercial and technology buildings. Visualize a new Downtown commercial corridor, perhaps at the eastern edge of the district near Interstate 5. Go directly east of Petco Park and picture a technology campus.

Within the current density allowances for this district an additional 6,600 residential units can be built. When Downtown’s new master plan is approved later this year by the City Council, an even higher intensity of allowable development will exist in the East Village.

24/7 Environment

Most importantly, Downtown can uniquely boast an almost 24/7 environment. What tech company can resist a place where their unusual working hours and hyperactive employees can be interwoven with such frenetic and stimulating activity?

Once they work and play here, they will come here to live. Critically missing in the present stock is housing for young professionals. But once these technology companies discover Downtown, and particularly the East Village beginning with the Ballpark District, more housing will follow to accommodate this special brand of employee. Until then, residential developers are catering to a relatively narrow market segment of aging baby boomers. Some who are purchasing in East Village fit the young professional category, but most do not. Survey results still show most buyers are older than 50, affluent empty nesters, almost half of whom work Downtown or don’t work at all.

Petco And The L.A. Olympic Effect

At the March soft opening of Petco, during which more than 40,000 persons attended the first game played in the SDSU baseball tournament, an unusual phenomenon occurred. People took the trolley, or parked elsewhere in Downtown and walked a mile to the ballpark. Parking lots nearer to the ballpark were not full.

Remember the Summer Olympics of 1984? Olympic visitors to Los Angeles heeded the gridlock and traffic chaos warnings of organizers by arriving early or through alternative means. It was the quietest and least congested two weeks of the 20th century in Los Angeles. The “L.A. Olympic Effect” was created.

While the opening of Petco Park is not the same as an Olympic festival, it holds the potential to fundamentally change the dynamics of people’s interaction with Downtown.

Petco is surrounded by a developing fabric of neighborhoods. People will happily find a way to come here, stroll the streets, hang at the restaurants and bars, shop in the stores and maybe buy a home. Petco is an anchor draw that is inherently tied to the local community. This is a symbiosis that works for everybody. And it is transforming our urban environment.