Former San Diego Councilman Michael Zucchet is v.p. of real estate for J. Peter Block Cos., developer of a proposed seven-story building next to El Cortez. (photo/alandeckerphoto.com)

Downtown — like most of San Diego — is both defined by and held captive by its geography. Bounded on the west and south by the San Diego Bay, its north and east edges are defined by the hills that must be scaled to escape.

The biggest of those is Cortez Hill, one of Downtown’s first neighborhoods to have residences and businesses side by side. Named for El Cortez Hotel, which spent 25 of its 79 years under threat of demolition, the hill marks the entry to and periphery of Downtown.

The hill remains dotted with a handful of the original Victorian mansions, along with 1920s Spanish Revival apartment buildings, 1980s post-modern, and new construction as well. Blocks of Mediterranean rowhouses staircase up and down the hills, and residential high-rises tower across from the highways marking the limit of Downtown.

“It’s our own little slice of San Francisco,” says Joyce Summer, who has lived on Cortez Hill for five years. “We are a charming bedroom community in the heart of the city.”

Besides views of the bay, Balboa Park and the Coronado Bridge, longtime residents have had a bird’s eye view of the condominium towers popping up Downtown.

The past five years have brought more than 1,000 new homes — condos and apartments — to Cortez Hill, with Aloft, Aria, Atmosphere, Cortez Blu, Discovery and Current either completed or under way.

Joyce Summer, a resident of Cortez Hill, calls it ‘Our own little slice of San Francisco.’ (photo/lambertphoto.com)

And a second building may be coming to the landmark El Cortez as developers Peter Janopaul and Anthony Block seek approval for a seven-story, 84-unit building on a 20,000-square-foot lot next to the historic hotel.

Down the hill to the south is the core of San Diego, from First Avenue to Park Boulevard and from A Street to Broadway, where the business district finds hotels and office towers being nudged by a number of proposed condominium and apartment developments.

In this area, developers are trying to blend residential towers with the existing retail, hotels and office buildings — Symphony Towers, the Union Bank and Bank of America buildings — with interesting results.

The projects range from affordable units at SmartCorner, where residents will have the trolley at the front door, to the luxuries of the 680-unit Vantage Pointe project on the entire block between Ninth and 10th avenues, and A and B streets.

SmartCorner, slated for completion in May, may be the first new residential development to open its doors in the Core, reports Sherm Harmer, co-developer with Urban Housing Partners.

The moderately priced units are selling well, he says, of the project where the 20th floor, rooftop terrace will be open to every resident rather than built into a penthouse.

Sherm Harmer, co-developer with Urban Housing Partners of SmartCorner, says the project may be the first new residential development to open its doors in the Core. (photo/lambertphoto.com)

“A lot of young professionals and single folks are interested because our low price points are allowing them to move Downtown,” Harmer says. “We’re planning a really livable building, with the trolley and 8,000 square feet of retail that caters to our residents on site.”

Vantage Pointe, among the largest residential buildings Downtown, is loaded with amenities and priced to reflect it. Condos are selling well in the 40-story building now under construction, reports spokeswoman Sarah Peterson.

But not all the Core projects are soaring.

T.C. Holdings abandoned plans for 196 units in a 33-story building slated for the corner of 11th Avenue and B Street, although the project was fully entitled. An auction of the property and plans originally scheduled for August were canceled at the last minute when the company found an as-yet-unnamed buyer, said to be based in Newport Beach.

Harmer says he knows of a half dozen projects on hold and other projects where developers have lost interest in converting apartments to condos. For example, national developer D.R. Horton has pulled out of some of its San Diego projects and left its deposits behind, including one in Bankers Hill.

“With few exceptions, if they don’t already have a shovel in the ground, they won’t be building for a while,” says Michael Zucchet, the former city councilman who is vice president of real estate for J. Peter Block Cos.

That’s fine with Cortez Hill residents, including Rita Collier. While the neighborhood welcomes the coming park at the northeastern edge, and the completion of the projects under way, many people are concerned about the hill becoming too busy and too built.

“I hope our neighborhood won’t change in the next five years,” says Collier, who has lived on the hill since 2002. “It would be nice to have more neighborhood retail that you didn’t have to go down hill for, but we’re about the right size now.”

More than 1,000 new homes have come to Cortez Hill in the past five years. One of them is OliverMcMillan’s Aloft on the south side of Date Street between Eighth and Ninth avenues.

The neighborhood character — reminiscent of Potrero or Nob Hill in San Francisco — is part of the attraction for OliverMcMillan Co., which is developing Aloft.

“Our view was that everything was basically being built right in the middle of Downtown, and with that you get all the benefits of the high-energy central location, yet there is also some downside to it,” says Dene Oliver, the company’s chief executive. “ We thought (Cortez Hill) was really a differentiated site because it looks back over Balboa Park, and you are going to be getting a little more tranquility, yet if you want to be in the epicenter of everything, you can walk down the hill.”

The hill puts its residents just a bit above the hustle and bustle of work-day Downtown, and offers its own special benefits. The hill also includes the Cortez Hill Shelter where the YWCA offers homeless families a chance to get grounded and started toward their own homes.

El Cortez Hotel, which opened in 1927, has served as a neighborhood catalyst several times in its history. When it was built atop land cleared of Ulysses S. Grant Jr.’s Victorian house, as a mixed apartment and hotel building, it sparked the new development of the Cortez Hill neighborhood, according to the “Journal of San Diego History.” In the next 50 years, the 17-story hotel withstood additions and alterations — a bright red sign in 1937 and the exterior glass elevator in the 1950s. The hotel deteriorated in the 1970s and 1980s, and was threatened with doom until it was declared a historical landmark in July 1990.

In 1998, Block and Janopaul struck a deal with the Centre City Development Corp. to redevelop the historical landmark into apartments with seed money from the CCDC.

By 2000, the partners decided to switch from apartments to condos, repaid the loan and again transformed the property, leaving the historic Don Room and El Cortez sign intact. The quick sale of the condos in the appreciating market helped draw other developers into the neighborhood.

Now Block and Janopaul have returned to the agency with plans for the second building that will include a ground floor swimming pool to be shared with El Cortez, underground parking and retail on the first floor.

“Peter has proposed a building that’s about half of what he could build and he’s taken great care to respect the architecture and the tremendous landmark next door,” says Zucchet. “Even the Save Our Heritage Organisation has voted 8-1 to support it.”

But resistance to the development exists among El Cortez residents and others, who say the building will block views, attract crowds and diminish the character of the landmark.

If approved, the building may be the last to break ground in the Cortez Hill and Core neighborhoods, at least until the market shakes out.

“No one’s in a hurry to break ground because financing is tough,” Harmer says. “The market is soft and sales are at last year’s levels. It’s a good, healthy thing to let the supply dry up.”