It has been more than six months since we enthralled readers with tales of excitement and euphoria about Downtown San Diego and we just couldn’t wait any longer. Yes, we know that you recognize that Downtown San Diego is probably the “hottest” new downtown in America, so let’s document its heat.

Downtown San Diego is a tourist mecca. Next to Las Vegas, we have the highest hotel occupancy rate in the United States, bar none. Our only tourism problem is that we do not have a sufficient number of hotel rooms to accommodate the masses. The good news: in the next three years we will add more than 3,200 new hotel rooms Downtown including a 1,200-room waterfront Hilton and 344-room Marriott Renaissance. All that is along with the magnificent 512-room newly opened JMI Omni and the imminent rebirth of the Clarion.

And parking? Don’t even give it a thought. By the end of next year, we will have opened 7,500 new spaces for public parking, almost all of them within easy walking distance of Petco Park.

Then there’s the pièce d’résistance: the condominium market. Based on Market Pointe’s remarkable urban database — the firm is the scorekeeper for the Centre City Development Corp. — Downtown San Diego is sold out until mid-2006. Repeat: mid-2006.

This year, more than 2,300 condominium units will be delivered and occupied. More than half are conversions, which almost became rentals until their developers figured out that converters would pay a lot more than apartment renters. The largest of the pack was the 382-unit Acquavista followed by the 230-unit Palermo and the 220-unit Gaslamp CitySquare. And the classic El Cortez also converted to condominiums to begin yet another chapter in its long and storied life.

A few condominiums that will be completed in 2004 actually were built to be condominiums. Among them are Intracorp’s Trellis, Western Pacific’s Park Blvd. West, Intergulf’s La Vita and Bosa’s Grande at Santa Fe I.

In 2005, another 1,800 units will be completed and almost all are under construction and sold out. The two largest are the M2i (Citymark) and Bosa’s Grande at Santa Fe II.

As the market increases in intensity, the project names seem to get stranger. Two of next year’s completions are Metrome (Barratt) and Fahrenheit (Citymark).

Then there’s 2006: So far, only one of the projects for 2006 production has broken ground but many more will crunch the traditional gold shovel into Downtown’s fertile ground in the next few months. The developers are already marketing Icon (Levin Menzies), The Mark (Douglas Wilson), Alta (Anka) and Bosa’s Electra.

All of these projects report interest lists in the thousands. Better yet, most of them have prequalified reservations for most of their units. As the dropout rate has been rather low (10 percent) in the past two years, there is good reason to believe the reservists will stick with their choices until completion. The total units to be completed in 2006 will be in excess of 2,500.

Condominium conversions will be few in 2006 because there are few apartment projects left to convert.

Is Downtown running out of condominiums? Hardly. The Marketpointe database includes another 9,000-plus units that could come online from 2007-2009, almost all of them in East Village.

San Diego is on a path to tripling its Downtown housing unit count by 2020, a few short years away. If that happens, the Downtown population in 2020 will be more than 70,000 compared to barely 21,000 at the time of the 2000 Census.

Note that at the time of the census, the average rent Downtown was $534 per month and the average condominium value was $334,000. Today the average rent is in excess of $1,000 per month and the average new condominium sells for more than $500,000.

These population projections will, no doubt, warm the very cockles of the hearts of Downtown merchants; but it should also bring cheer to Downtown residents. With this explosion of population and addition of hotels, the neighborhood retail and services offered will multiply. Expect several supermarkets — a second comes to East Village next year — and a wide variety of traditional services such as hair salons, barbers, dry cleaners and video rentals.

Still, five basic elements are missing that are clearly required to turn Downtown into a well-rounded self-contained village: churches, neighborhood pubs (not the Gaslamp variety), schools, kids and a plethora of office-type jobs. Once we have those additions, we will be the envy of the redevelopment community throughout the United States. And maybe even the envy of suburban San Diegans.

Alan N. Nevin is director of economic research with MarketPointe Realty Advisors (marketpointe.com), a consultancy providing real estate and demographic statistics, feasibility studies and litigation support to the California land use industry and legal professions. Nevin can be reached by e-mail at anevin@sandiegometro.com.