Harbor Front Community Coalition leader Christine Gaunt says activating the area around the Old Police Headquarters is more important than a perfect project. (photo/alandeckerphoto.com)

A proposed $42 million waterfront retail center built in and around a vacant historic building and aside a new and specially upgraded park is in danger of being loved to death. Because it is impossible for the adaptive reuse of the 18-year-shuttered Old Police Headquarters at the corner of Harbor Drive and Pacific Highway to accommodate all its fans, something has to give when its environmental impact report is considered Nov. 1 by San Diego Port Commissioners.

“We need to get this project approved and get that area activated, even if it is not perfect,” says Christine Gaunt, the organizer of the Harbor Front Community Coalition, a collection of community groups with an active interest in the project.

Developer GMS Realty’s proposal includes 61,000 square feet for former Old Town State Park concessionaire Diane Powers to operate a Bazaar del Mundo. The project also includes 16,000 square feet of markets and 22,000 square feet of restaurant and entertainment space. A dinner theater is planned. No deals have been signed and annual lease rates are expected to be pricey, in the $80 to $120 a square foot range. The 12-acre project also includes the demolition and reconstruction of the Pier Walk Building now used by Chesapeake for fish processing and distribution.

“We are trying to do a project that most of the people in Downtown San Diego want,” says Bill Gerrity, the president of GMS. “The key is to capture what makes it special. What make it special are the open space, the bays, the nice breezes and views. It is a retail project, not an office building. If people don’t like what goes there, they won’t go.”

Former Old Town concessionaire Diane Powers is negotiating with GMS Realty to operate a Bazaar del Mundo in the Old Police Headquarters.

But some of the project’s fans have yet to be mollified. Because of the building’s history, the San Diego Police Historical Association wants a free museum four times the 2,500 square feet being offered. The adjacent Hyatt is concerned about traffic gridlock and the lack of promised underground parking. Others worry whether a new park will only be temporary.

“This is a complex deal but we are actually very close to having a project up and running that will be a favorite amenity on the waterfront,” says Gaunt, who lives and works in the CityFront Terrace condominium complex across the street.

Dealing With The Law

The San Diego Police Historical Association’s strongly worded seven-page letter is the harshest response to the EIR. The association says the document is so flawed it needs to be re-written and re-circulated. Among the organization’s points is that modifications to the building, such as removing 1 1/2 of three old jail cells, will impact the building’s historic status. The law enforcement group has concerns about operating in the restored building.

At a Harbor Front breakfast to bring together the different parties, Stephen Willard, the police association’s vice president, said 2,500 square feet — a 500-foot ground floor retail shop and 2,000-square-foot exhibit/office space directly upstairs — is too large for a satellite museum and too small for a primary museum. Willard envisions a 10,000-square-foot museum with office space and an exhibit that may include historic vehicles as well as items that demand a high-level of security, such as weapon and narcotic displays. The museum could trace the history of law enforcement activity in San Diego back to 1542 when Indians shot arrows at Cabrillo’s sailors who had stolen food.

Another challenge is operating expense. In addition to expensive rents, tenants will pay annual common area fees of $20 a square foot. While those rates are out of a small museum’s league, the waterfront location also would help guarantee attendance success. “We could have a 10,000-square-foot museum in San Pasqual Valley tomorrow, but it would not succeed,” Willard says.

Regardless of the museum’s eventual size, some of those involved say the Port should underwrite its costs, rather than expect those expenses to be borne by other tenants. The OPH development is expected to bring the Port about $2 million annually in fresh revenue.

Parking is an issue. Seaport has 450 spaces. The EIR calls for expanding that to 824 on-site spaces and 120 vehicles parked by valet services. Peak demand is projected to be 1,162 or a deficit of 218 spaces. John Helmer, the Port’s manager of planning services, points to a plan to shuttle patrons from satellite lots as a workable solution for the busiest days. “You don’t build a church parking lot for Easter Sunday,” he says.

The project has other constraints, chief among them the need to retain and restore a 66-year-old building. In the past, the Port might have helped finance this work through rent credits. But these days, local government’s priority is self-sufficient projects. “That is the economic reality of the current situation where the public agencies have less money to work with and are looking to the private sector for capital,” says Gerrity.

The port does have plenty of soft expenses in the project. The agency is investing significant staff time and other resources, will build the basic park next door and may fund some of the environmental remediation required on the property.

The agreement the Port is developing with GMS calls for a 40-year lease on the site. The two sides have until March 31 to get a deal done. It would be separate from GMS’s existing lease of Seaport Village, which expires in 17 years.

Some OPH History

Discussion about redeveloping the OPH site goes back more than a decade and in various forms included a large above-ground parking garage, tearing down the police station and a Ferris wheel out over the water. The most recent failed effort came in 2003 when Ripley’s Entertainment and GMS were finalists in a competition that would have greatly expanded entertainment uses on the waterfront, with the Ripley’s proposal including a Believe It Or Not museum and large aquarium. Public criticism caused the port to instead hold an international design competition for the site and follow that by selecting a developer. The winner of that competition in June 2004 was a plan by Rob Wellington Quigley Architects in San Diego and Sasaki Associates Inc. in San Francisco.

Estimated to cost $213 million, the plan calls for an extension of Downtown development and street patterns to the water’s edge, and a large circular boardwalk extending into the bay. Questions about funding the project, and securing approvals from an estimated 27 or so agencies for dredging the bay and installing the centerpiece boardwalk, caused the Port to split the OPH off as a separate plan.

Quigley says the struggle to move that 2004 plan forward it is not surprising. “You’ve got to expect that,” he says. “This is San Diego. But it is possible to do this. Look at the payoff.”

No stranger to heralded projects that have trouble being built, Quigley is the designer of the stalled Downtown library and Children’s Museum. In this case, he says he included a denser amount of development in the 10- to 15-year plan in order to generate the dollars to pay for a show-stopping park and three parking garages. “This is a very healthy and exciting first step in achieving those goals,” he says of the OPH proposal.

Not that Quigley is content. “I’m concerned the Port may say, ‘We got the first phase done, that’s it,’” he says.

A Site Of Importance

Among those championing public funding of the project is Peter Q. Davis. A former board member and chairman of both the Centre City Development Corp. and Port District, Davis says both agencies should chip in to ensure the proper public space improvements.

“CCDC and the Port have been unbelievably successful, in large part by using some of our most valuable space, the tidelands, and the views to the water,” Davis says. “It is time for these two public organizations to give back. I call it a present to ourselves.”

This plan shows the layout of a renovated Old Police Station, adjacent fish processing operation and new waterfront park.

Davis has a ready answer for why this spot is so deserving of public dollars.

“The police station is located in the middle of San Diego’s ‘Plymouth Rock,’” he says. “This is where Father Serra conducted his first religious service in San Diego, and thus California. It is where, or very near, where the unfortunate sailors and marines that were to meet Father Serra are buried. This is where the USS Bennington was docked when it suddenly exploded — taking a number of sailors to their watery graves. William Heath Davis built his pier and started his town at this location and on and on goes the history, right up to the old police station being build as a WPA project during the Depression. This is the perfect place for San Diegans to be able to come, enjoy the views and water activities and if they wish, reflect on those who came before them and contributed to our city. The old police station should be saved in as much of its historic form as possible. It should be developed for commercial uses, as good uses chase out bad uses and the revenue from this project can and should be used to self-fund the maintenance and the supporting needs of the project... At the very least, the Port needs to agree to pledge the revenue from this site to reuse on the site. It should start with making the police museum a reality, although not at the size the PHA is presently posturing for.”

Davis cautions about expecting too much from the developer.

“I worry that deal fatigue could set in and GMS might tire of the hassle, if all the shareholder groups continue to complain,” Davis says. “But this is a great site and I am hopeful the next mayor will take a positive role in protecting this asset and making it a present to future San Diegans.”

Gerrity notes the idea for redeveloping the site preceded his company’s involvement. “It is a very important piece of property in Downtown,” Gerrity says. “Everybody has an opinion about it and everybody has a strong opinion. The public wants various amenities, such as a park and open space. In order for investors and lenders to be part of the project, it needs to be commercially viable. If a lot of these other interest groups put various requirements on the project, it won’t go forward. But I think in these things there is a natural process of give and take that usually produces a viable project that meets most of the goals. I am encouraged by the debate.”

A Signature Park

A $213 million price tag and the need for dozens of agencies’ approval caused the Port to first focus only on the Old Police Headquarters property before tackling a grander plan to renovate the waterfront.

An extraordinary element of the project is an offer by the Ruocco Foundation to spend $3.5 million on upgrades for a park of about 3 1/2 acres that will run alongside the project to the waterfront. Max Schmidt, CCDC’s former senior planner, is one of three people selected by The San Diego Foundation, which administers the fund, to oversee its use. The money was bequeathed by noted San Diego architect Lloyd Ruocco specifically for an urban park.

While both the OPH and park are part of the EIR, Schmidt sees them as independent projects. “We hope to travel separately from GMS and the police department as we negotiate with the Port,” he says. The foundation’s money will be used for enhanced lighting, landscaping and water features.

In exchange for the donation, the foundation wants a long-term guarantee the park will remain in place. Schmidt’s concern is the property will be developed when and if the Port goes forward with the Sasaki/Quigley plan.

“Our position is that we are dealing with the Port and we intend to enhance the park, but only if it is dedicated as a park for a long time,” Schmidt says. “The time we have been talking about is 66 years. In the event the Port decides it has to re-use, they have to repay and find us a comparable site.”

The Forgotten Tenant

Little noticed by most of Seaport Village’s 4 million annual visitors outside the retail center’s northern boundary is Chesapeake Fish Co., a wholesale, 100-employee seafood business that moves 9 million pounds of fish a year and celebrated its 90th anniversary on Sept. 30. Its 16,000-square-foot building will be razed, rebuilt, pivoted to face a park-like walkway down to a pier, shrunk in square footage and given space for a retail and restaurant operation.

Mark Bailey, Chesapeake’s president, worries his traditional waterfront business is getting too little attention. “We believe the commercial fishing fleet and seafood processing are protected uses and one of the reasons the Port exists is to protect water-dependent industries, not the T-shirt shops and candle shops,” Bailey says. “Unfortunately, that is what pays the bills.”

Bailey is intrigued by the idea of having a restaurant and store as part of his operation. He’s already talking to Craig Ghio of the Ghio/Anthony’s Restaurant family about operating the eatery. He is nervous that the access plan will make it difficult for his trucks to come and go and to unload the 30 fishing boats that dock at the nearby pier to sell him their entire catch. “The plan needs to have good access for the trucks and unloading the boats and not be encumbered by the lady with the stroller,” Bailey says.

Yet because much of his product these days is flown in, one idea is to split the operation, continuing to unload boats and process fish at the site, but having the seafood that comes by air sent elsewhere for processing before shipping. “We have never had to do that in 90 years,” he says. “You could have your garage a block away and bring your groceries over, but nobody does that.”

It is even possible the entire operation will move, perhaps near Convair Lagoon where the primary activity today is rental cars. “If the solution is we move to another location on the bay and free up this spot, we are open to that,” Bailey says. “But the California Coastal Act of 1976 states existing commercial fishing and recreational boating harbor space shall not be reduced. The California Coastal Commission is the key to approving this development and I believe they are not as interested in non-water development.”

What’s Next

Port staff is responding to all the comments the EIR generated and will present its analysis, and mitigation options, to Port Commissioners on Nov. 1. If approved, the EIR would go to the Coastal Commission which typically acts in less than 60 days. Gaunt is thinking positive.

“This plan opens new view corridors through the proposed Ruocco Park, further activates the Embarcadero, recreates an old meridian with the new Pier Walk and saves one of San Diego’s best historic buildings through a well-conceived adaptive re-use,” Gaunt says. “The main tenants of the plan fundamentals are there, and now it is about crafting the details. My goal is for Port commissioners to acknowledge the true potential of this project and give it their highest priority, including making some adjustments to the financing to ensure that this project comes to fruition in early 2007. It will turn 20 years of urban blight into urban delight. I am very hopeful.”

— Timothy McClain