The proposed $1.4 billion Ballpark Village project has brought the gentrification debate to a pitch with discussions of its possible impact on maritime industry and Barrio Logan.

Standing amid seven acres of asphalt outside Petco Park on a Saturday afternoon, it is amazingly quiet. The Padres are out of town, the construction cranes are silent and across Harbor Drive, at the 10th Avenue terminal, stacks of Dole containers sit undisturbed, awaiting a ship full of fruit due to arrive in a few days. A jogger trots past, a young couple heads to the ticket office and a Padres employee walks out to get something out of the trunk of his car. The scene belies a brewing political storm that will begin to play out this month and has see-you-in-court written all over it.

On these parking lots, JMI Realty and Lennar are proposing a privately financed $1.4 billion development, larger in dollar terms than Petco Park and the proposed new Chargers stadium combined. It is by far the largest in Downtown’s history. With 3 million square feet of above-ground development, the project would feature at least 300,000 square feet of office, a minimum of 115,000 square feet of retail, maybe a hotel and up to 1,400 market-rate housing units and 100,000 square feet of affordable housing. Ballpark Village, as it is known, would pay an additional $5.22 million in affordable housing fees and kick off $20 million a year in city taxes, not to mention create thousands of construction jobs.

What’s not to like?

Plenty, say critics. Chief among them is the Working Waterfront Group, a collection of labor, community activists and maritime tenants. It all boils down to gentrification, how improvements in the neighborhood can force unwelcome change on neighbors. It is an issue bedeviling communities around the country and world, and the most serious threat yet to the 92101 redevelopment machine.

Two Worried Constituencies

Across the railroad yard and Harbor Drive from Ballpark Village sits the 96-acre Tenth Avenue Marine Terminal. It is where advocates of maritime industry are drawing a line in the sand. Past this point, beyond where a 1,200-room Hilton hotel will be built on the shuttered and heavily polluted Campbell Shipyard site, they declare, is where encroachment by non-maritime uses halts. They fear most the twin 500-foot tall residential towers planned to be snug against the railroad tracks near the entrance to the rail yard. If approved, they say, it is inevitable that residents of those homes will one day agitate to turn the marine terminal and the giant rail yard into a hospitality-friendly place, not one of blue collar jobs where a high school graduate can easily earn more than $50,000 a year.

A few blocks south of Ballpark Village sits the evolving Barrio Logan and to the east and southeast are Sherman Heights and Logan Heights, the latter part of the awakening Bronze Triangle. In Barrio Logan, some fear Downtown residential towers will spawn smaller bay-view towers marching south into their neighborhood while pricing out poor residents.

In a domino theory scenario painted by maritime advocates, as one tower follows another, protests from their NIMBY occupants will pressure shipyard operations to the point the Navy looks elsewhere for a home to berth and repair its warships.

Far-fetched? Maybe. Possible? Sure. Over time. San Diego Bay’s heavy industry used to be located along and nearer Point Loma some 80 years ago, but was relocated to mid-bay and National City. With the South Bay protected environmentally, heavy maritime industry has nowhere else to go in San Diego County.

Oakland, which is promoting an urban residential renaissance, is considering art studios, luxury hotels and a theme park for a shuttered 160-acre waterfront Army base. Los Angeles is expected to add more terminal space this year than San Diego has in the last 100. With limited rail access — many of the containers offloaded here are trucked to Los Angeles for rail shipping — and room to expand, port officials must work hard to attract new business, a task made more challenging by uncertainty about the fate of their primary bulk terminal.

The Centre City Development Corp., pleased the 7.2 acres is being master planned rather than developed as individual parcels, defends the project as being 1,300 feet from the Tenth Avenue terminal, exceeding the 1,000-foot buffer between residential and industrial uses called for by the state. The port’s success, or failure, with maritime, is not CCDC’s responsibility, says Peter Hall, the agency’s president. “The proper question is, how do we make it coexist and work in an urban area?” says Hall. “When you live in an urban area you are going to have activities and urban noise. It is not the same as going into the countryside and living.”

The Need To Talk

In the 26-block Ballpark District alone, 4,613 housing units are built, under construction or planned, worth a combined $1.95 billion. Nearly 800 people have moved in recently and plans call for 6,700 residents by 2030. In the last three years, assessed property values have increased more than $400 million. Ballpark Village symbolizes the leaping success of Downtown and the resulting gentrification pressures.

“It is a catalyst that brought this to the forefront of our concern,” acknowledges Dan Wilkens, executive vice president of the San Diego Unified Port District, which serves as the primary steward of the non-military tidelands and oversees 2,500 acres of land and 3,400 acres of water. “That issue has never been fully and robustly discussed,” says Wilkens.

The port has experience with gentrification as the former operator of San Diego International Airport. People would buy homes, aware that planes flew overhead. But after living there a while, they would begin to complain, writing letters and making phone calls. “It sets up an adversarial relationship between people who live in these homes and own a piece of the rock,” Wilkens says.

Wilkens testified at the CCDC meeting where Ballpark Village was approved and will likely do so again when it appears before the City Council Aug. 2. “We would like the project redesigned and residents pulled farther away from Harbor Drive,” he says.

Concluding the issue is larger than this project, Wilkens also is working to put on a high-level symposium on the issues of gentrification and industrial/residential clash. Among the participants he envisions are the San Diego Association of Governments, San Diego County, city of San Diego, Navy, CCDC, waterfront groups, shipyards, the Urban Land Institute, developers, the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corp., representatives from the biotech and high-tech communities and other parties. He sees the moderator being an impartial outside expert.

The sessions would be recorded, analyzed and delivered to regional policymakers with a recommendation on handling the industrial/residential conflict, whether on the waterfront, Otay Mesa, North County or any other point in San Diego.

For the port, the session would look at the consequences of maritime being pressured off Tenth Avenue. “Let’s make that decision consciously,” Wilkens says. “Let’s not back into that and let the real estate market make that decision.”

Pete Litrenta, executive director of the San Diego Port Ship Repair Association, worries that residential development near the waterfront will pressure shipyards and ultimately the Navy in San Diego.

Wilkens realizes such a session easily could be dominated by those opposed to Ballpark Village.

“It is the job of the moderator to not let this happen,” he says.

JMI Realty has agreed not only to participate, but serve as a sponsor “so that we don’t wake up one day where we find our ability to have a working waterfront is impaired,” says Charles Black, executive vice president.

Wilkens says it will take a number of other partners, perhaps up to 10, to help underwrite the cost. He doubts anything on such a scale could be held before the council meeting when Ballpark Village is discussed.

“We probably should have had this discussion two years ago, as far along in the process as this is,” he says. “We understand how we got here; now what do we do? This project is probably the last project that should have this kind of approval process without this debate being held. Whether it is here, in El Cajon or North County, wherever these things might come up.”

Mike Stepner, the former city architect, supports a symposium to look at the big picture and smaller meetings to address the specific concerns of adjacent communities. “The answer is not to decrease the intensity of Downtown development, nor to stop what is going to happen in the Bronze Triangle,” says Stepner. “There has to be a dialogue with that community. The improvements should be upfront. The neighborhoods are going to have to think they are getting something out of this process.”

Among the interested ob-servers is Peter Q. Davis, a former chairman of both CCDC and the Port Commission. At the port he is most famous for not being reappointed by Mayor Murphy and getting clobbered a year ago at a hearing where he advocated examining alternate uses of Tenth Avenue, including a football stadium.

When a large shipment of fruit or other goods arrives, truck activity through the Tenth Avenue Marine Terminal, and Barrio Logan, can be steady for up to 48 hours. (photo/alandeckerphoto.com)

Davis, who is skeptical that Tenth Avenue can ever be a consistent money making operation, favors a forum that explores the financial future of the terminal for industrial maritime use versus hotel, restaurant and cruise ship terminal uses. “If you opened up that part of Tenth Avenue, it opens up Barrio Logan into becoming part of a lively Downtown, one in which Dole trucks do not roll through 24 hours a day,” Davis says.

A pragmatist, Davis also realizes his ideas are in the minority both at the port and with the local state legislators whose assistance with state tidelands laws are essential for any such change.

Sharon Cloward, executive director of the San Diego Port Tenants Association, says the discussion should examine both Ballpark Village and future development south of Downtown. “We need to talk about the financial impact on our tenants and marine terminal and what would be the impact if we lost it all,” she says. “The port is out there doing its trade missions and people are nervous. If we had the loss of ship repair, would the Navy go away?”

Cloward says more information is needed on buffer zones to ensure residential does not crowd out industry.

“The whole purpose is to invite everybody to the table,” Cloward says. “One of the key things in this situation is we end up being driven by a project... The builder gives the city quick money and that’s great. But then you have new residents in there who say, ‘I didn’t know about that.’ How do we expand our maritime businesses with that kind of pressure? What happens if we get more trucks down there?”

Drawing The Line

Ed Plant, the owner of San Diego Refrigeration, says the growth of his business on the Tenth Avenue Marine Terminal is threatened by talk of new uses and residential towers proposed across Harbor Drive. (photo/alandeckerphoto.com)

The Tenth Avenue Terminal will handle more than 3 million tons of freight this year, about triple a decade ago. It is that growth, and efforts to keep expanding freight, that has the port joining with its tenants in drawing a figurative line in the sand. “The board has taken a policy decision that the Tenth Avenue terminal is not going to be used for anything other than it is now,” says Wilkens.

Ed Plant is the owner of San Diego Refrigeration, a growing cargo handling business on the Tenth Avenue Terminal. Five years ago, Plant handled a single ship. This year he will see 80 and next year expects to unload 100, sometimes with two or three docked at the terminal at the same time.

The continued uncertainty about the terminal hampers his ability to sign contracts. “Do you realize how hard it is in the international market to say we want your business but we don’t know what is going to be down here, a ballpark, a cruise terminal or whatever else they have in mind?” Plant asks.

Irritating its industrial tenants, the port itself infringed on industrial maritime at Tenth Avenue several years ago by changing a shipyard to hotel use to accommodate the San Diego Convention Center. Wilkens acknowledges the conversion but also notes hotel guests are different than residents. “People who live in hotels don’t have property rights,” he says. “They visit and they leave.”

The involvement of JMI, which is owned by John Moores, also stokes some fears. Moores, who owns the Padres, has ruminated publicly on the lack of activity at Tenth Avenue and said that it would make a good place for a football stadium. Recently, Moores hired Steve Peace to work for his JMI Inc.

Peace, the former assemblyman, senator and top adviser to Gov. Davis, says he has been briefed on the project and attended one CCDC meeting on the subject, but is otherwise uninvolved. “I’m keeping an eye from a 2,000 foot level,” Peace says.

Yet during his legislative career, Peace was a vociferous critic of the port. He authored legislation that would have created a regional government agency that eliminated the port. While it failed, his efforts to separate the agency from the airport were successful. His feelings about the port have not changed. “We should be fighting to extend the working port capacity,” Peace says. “But the port district is so far behind the curve on pursuing working port opportunities and in understanding the implications of the residential development of Downtown, the least of their problems is Ballpark Village. Pretend Ballpark Village does not exist. They are 10 years behind in planning. Every last executive at the port should have been fired a long time ago. But it has nothing to do with Ballpark Village.”

That’s not the sentiment on the waterfront.

“Steve Peace has first said get rid of Tenth Avenue, then the railroad, then dissolve the port,” says Plant, who is hardly alone in voicing suspicion about the former legislator’s role with JMI. Having lost his Downtown refrigeration warehouse to the ballpark, Plant now worries the same players could be threatening this business.

“I think they have done a wonderful job in Downtown San Diego,” Plant says. “But I think it is time to step back and talk about how we all become good neighbors.”

Labor also is engaging in the debate, collecting signatures in opposition to the Ballpark Village project. The industrial waterfront between the National City Marine Terminal and Tenth Avenue is estimated to provide 35,000 jobs with about 15,000 of them being on tidelands. (A larger study is expected next year.) Critics note that only about 150 longshoreman jobs, the ones with the greatest benefits, are supported by the Tenth Avenue terminal. Maritime supporters counter those other jobs still pay better than tourism or retail positions.

“We want to preserve our jobs at the port,” says Jerry Butkiewicz, secretary-treasurer of the San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council. “The whole deal is, we are not opposed to the good projects. We just want to make sure this project works for the city of San Diego. When you have done something that impacts the community, we need to look at the full EIR... It has been shown time after time that if you squeeze industrial jobs with residential property, the industrial jobs will go away.”

Butkiewicz is optimistic a solution can be reached. “If JMI wants to do the project right, then I think the project can get done,” he says. “But if JMI wants to just dictate to the city what the project is going to be, we should not let that happen.”

The Navy Way

Part of the appeal of San Diego to the Navy as a home port is that when ships return from deployment, they can undergo repairs while most of the crew members move back to their local homes.

“The infrastructure is here to get ship repair scheduled in a cost-effective way,” says Wilkens. Hotels, shopping centers, restaurants and retail are attractive waterfront uses but can be located elsewhere. “Ships can’t be anywhere but on the bay,” Wilkens says.

The Navy representative to the Working Waterfront Group declined to comment for this article. But others laid out the feared scenario.

“As you move (residential) down south, you start encroaching on the ship repair industry,” says Pete Litrenta, executive director of the San Diego Port Ship Repair Association. “You have to start wondering about the Navy presence. One of the reasons the Navy did so well in BRAC (Base Realignment And Closure) was the interdependence of the bases. We have such high military value for not only the aviation things like the training ranges, but also our fleet. The fleet is very well maintained here. When I was on active duty, a third was at sea, a third in training and a third in overhaul. That was when we were building to a 600 ship Navy. Now we are down to 300 ships and can’t afford to have them down for repairs for so long. Shipyards work on overhauls that used to be months long and now are done in eight or nine weeks. In order to do so, they had to go to a 24/7 routine. If you are down in the barrio, late at night, the lights, the noise, the hammering, the chipping paint and all of those kinds of things are very noisy. What if there was a curfew on the shipyards like there is at Lindbergh? I don’t know when that would happen, but somewhere down the road the Navy could just put their ships somewhere else.”

Litrenta notes that the Northwest has great shipyard facilities and a lower cost of housing. “You have some powerful congressional types that would use that against us,” he says.

Hal Sadler, the chairman of CCDC, says concern is legitimate about the future of the Navy and shipyards in San Diego. But he pointed to history, and not tall condos, as the reason.

“From a long range planning standpoint I think they have to worry,” Sadler says. “If you didn’t do anything with this project and you looked at the evolution of our port, when (Alonzo) Horton came in, there were all these (piers and maritime activities). Now they are clear back into the only remaining parcel, Tenth Avenue. There is a reason for that. The highest and best use of the land is for tourism.”

Ballpark Village As Good Neighbor

Walking the project site outside Petco Park, Charles Black points out how putting the residential towers on the west end of the Ballpark Village project keeps shadows off the site planned for a new main library.

Charles Black is ambassador-like as the Ballpark Village point man. The JMI executive vice president acknowledges the critics’ concerns as legitimate. He has agreed to help the port pay for the gentrification symposium and craft specific legal documents that residents of the condo towers will have to sign, forfeiting much of their ability to legally challenge the industrial activities.

“What the port is uncomfortable with is the creation of an adverse constituency,” Black says. “One of the consequences of this project is you get residential and industrial closer together and it is a problem. I don’t view our project as a threat but I do understand the adverse constituency. What I have proposed to the port is not only a set of disclosure documents that require detailed (explanations), but an easement that provides in effect they don’t have the right to maintain an action for a nuisance.”

Black also is engaging representatives of the neighboring communities and their advocates, which include the Environmental Health Coalition and the Center on Policy Initiatives.

“What has happened Downtown has had a very distinct and measurable impact on the surrounding neighborhoods,” says Donald Cohen, president of the center. “This is the bad side of smart growth. It is a very serious issue. As we reinvest in the urban core, as we do density in the urban core, the surrounding neighborhoods become more attractive (and expensive). The people who used to live there are going to have to move farther and farther away. Where are they going to go?”

Cohen is asking for JMI and CCDC to discuss a “Community Benefits Agreement,” a relatively new concept in urban planning that provides mitigation beyond what is required by law. Cohen wants guarantees of local employment and full benefits for all Ballpark Village construction jobs — essentially a Project Labor Agreement — and a training program for residents in nearby communities. He’d also like agreements for permanent jobs. “One of our groups works with African Americans who are ex-offenders,” he says. “That is a hard job. But what more important job is there to do?”

“I have done two PLAs, one for the ballpark, one for the Padres’ Parkade,” Black says. “Generally speaking, PLAs are more appropriate for public projects than for private projects. However, we will reserve judgment until we meet with Don (Cohen) and his colleagues.”

A greater commitment to affordable housing from JMI/Lennar and CCDC also is on Cohen’s agenda. Some progress has been made, Cohen acknowledges. For example, earlier this year the city contributed $3.6 million, or $86,500 a unit, to underwrite the 42-unit Gateway I Family Apartments Project in Logan Heights. The two-and three-bedroom units will rent for between $391 and $906 a month, depending on the occupant’s income. CCDC also has put $40 million into a fund for affordable housing outside Downtown with more promised.

The health coalition is a member of the Working Waterfront Group and is working for Barrio Logan on the Ballpark Village project as part of its Toxic Free Neighborhood program.

“The big concern is the gentrification,” says Randa Baramki, co-director of the Toxic Free Neighborhood campaign. “Ballpark Village, as well as some other CCDC housing projects, has not included affordable housing at the level Downtown workers can afford. What happens as the cost of land goes up is there is no place for working families to live. That has a domino effect in Barrio Logan. The developers who can’t develop Downtown or workers who can’t live Downtown are moving into barrio.”

Baramki says Barrio Logan residents also are concerned having tall buildings immediately adjacent to their community could lead to tall buildings in their community. One of the 10 principals in the newly created Barrio Logan Vision Plan is limiting new housing to three stories.

“We are asking CCDC to be consistent with the vision plan we are developing,” she says.

Like many Ballpark Village critics, Baramki wants CCDC to conduct a new environmental impact report that analyzes Downtown’s effect on the surrounding neighborhoods. “Every project has brought on more gentrification,” Baramki says. “There has to be a time when the city looks at the cumulative effect of these projects and what they are doing. The redevelopment area was supposed to take care of blight, but what are the benefits to the community if we are talking about completely unaffordable units? There is a responsibility within a redevelopment area to bring projects that are healthy for the community.”

Resolution Outside Of The Courtroom

Black says JMI always wanted this site to be special, which is why it partnered with Lennar and held a design competition about a year ago that attracted attention from more than 50 parties and resulted in the hiring of Johnson Fain Partners. The Los Angeles-based firm led the successful master planning on the 880-acre Mission Bay property in San Francisco.

“When we came to this project, we went to CCDC and said ‘we want to do a master plan for this project and try to get a look at everything at one time,’” Black says. “I want this to go to the city council. I don’t want this to go to just the CCDC board.”

Black notes that the city required the ballpark to generate $3 billion in investment over a 15-year period.. “This project by itself is $1.4 billion,” he says. “It gets us there.”

With the city’s insatiable need for revenue and housing, the gentrification of Barrio Logan is inevitable. Residential that is more dense than the community wants seems likely, especially if the city follows through with funding ambitious plans to relocate industrial operations to one section of the barrio.

JMI and Lennar, possibly with CCDC, may enter into what may be San Diego’s first Community Benefits Agreement. History already shows Downtown can get along with its neighbors. Residents of Sherman Heights are generally happy with efforts to prevent Padres fans from monopolizing street parking in their community.

“The bottom line for the city is this project generates $20 million a year for the city and redevelopment agency,” Black says. “Instead of using general fund monies to fix potholes Downtown, you can use redevelopment monies.”

The two towers likely won’t move, especially if plans for the main library remain. Design guidelines call for keeping shadows off the library, which is on the opposite side of the 7.2 acres. Litrenta and others disagree. “I’m saying lets keep our perspective here,” Litrenta says. “We are talking about something that could have a very deleterious impact on our marine terminal and economy, versus the courtyard of a library that will be in shadows part of the day.”

Stepner opposes easing shadow restrictions. “If there is a library it is a very important public function that says something about the city,” he says. “To shadow and hide it is a mistake.”

While the port’s concerns are understandable, the densities in this project, and this area, are old news. Port staffers monitored the creation of the 1992 Downtown community plan — which allowed for even more residential — and the 1998 master plan for the ballpark district, which spelled out the density swaps. Therefore, it is unlikely the city will commit to an expensive, and time-consuming reopening of the EIR. Peter Hall says everything proposed with Ballpark Village was already covered in the original EIR, so the addendum being circulated was appropriate.

It is possible the City Council could require the towers be reduced in size.

If the EIR option is foreclosed, the Working Waterfront Group may file a lawsuit.

Litrenta counsels going ahead with the EIR as the best way to blunt criticism and avoid lengthy delays. "If they don’t, I can imagine that there will be lawsuits," he says. "I can’t imagine they are saving any time by not doing the full EIR."