Petco Park’s opening convinced Joe Hill and his daughter Kristin to move Downtown. Under construction in the background is The Legend, where they now live with a view into the ballpark.

It was the Padres that convinced Joe Hill and his daughter, to leave their Mira Mesa home and become full-time participants in the Downtown Experience. “The first season at Petco we went to 40 games,” he says. “The next year it was 80.” Now it is the equivalent of 365.

Hill and Kristin, 14, live at The Legend, the 23-story Bosa Development condo tower overlooking left field at Petco. They were the 178-unit project’s sixth move-in, just in time to catch the last 10 games of the 2007 season. “It is awesome,” Hill says. “You open up your balcony and you can see the game. You go down to the viewing deck and see the game and then you go to your seats and look back up into your place.”

His decision to leave the suburbs brought questions from friends. “People did ask, ‘Why do you want to be Downtown?’” Hill says. “My answer was there is nowhere else in the country you can wake up every day and look into a major league ballpark. I look out at the Park in the Park and see people walking their dogs. I see right into the ballpark and what is going on there. I can see airplanes. I see the Coronado bridge. You feel alive. I have to pinch myself.”

As to what he and his daughter do when she’s not in school in La Jolla and he’s not at work in Point Loma, Hill ticks off a list of venues and restaurants — mostly the latter — which they hit early on. Indeed, it is that ever-evolving and expanding array of retail, dining, recreation and entertainment options that is making Downtown San Diego attractive to a new generation of residents, employers, employees and visitors.

Open just in time for St. Patrick’s Day, the Tilted Kilt Pub enjoyed instant success as an East Village gathering spot and now is scoring with baseball fans.

Some examples are in order. On the dining and entertainment front, The Tilted Kilt Pub adjacent to Petco opened just in time for St. Patrick’s Day. Owned by Anthony Laureti and designed by Tucker Sadler Architects, the Celtic-themed sports pub incorporates lots of fun design elements, including maps of real Celtic locales showcased on the tabletops, bar tops and even the circular suspended ceiling. Along with a 37-seat bar with six flat-screen monitors, amenities include a shuffle board, two pool tables, a dart board and video game machines. An elevated room overlooks the main bar and dining area. For those seeking a sports fix, the pub also includes 30 flat-screen plasma televisions and three 12-by-15-foot high-definition screens.

Even the traditional recreation activities can do with an urban twist. Downtown historians can share memories of old bowling alleys like Academy Bowl, Sunshine Alley and Tower Bowl, which was located where One America Plaza now towers. Now, ghosts from those eras can smile about East Village Tavern + Bowl, which may have only six lanes but offers up a lip-smacking reasonably priced food menu that shames its predecessors, along with plenty of flat screens with sports and a Downtown attitude. Children are allowed until 6 p.m. most days. Renting a lane costs $55 to $65 an hour, with a two-hour, six bowler limit. Cocktails are allowed.

With its smart and varied art offerings, the Thursday Night Thing at the Museum of Contemporary Art is a popular place for the young and hip to get their culture on. That at just $3 a head.

New restaurant options are always cooking in 92101, often upping the regional dining Q. For example, a late summer or early fall opening is expected for the Crescent Heights Kitchen & Lounge at the Advanced Equities Plaza building on Broadway. Owners David and Mariah McIntyre plan to offer modern American cuisine and an extensive wine list created in consultation with Kevin O’Connor, director of wine for Wolfgang Puck’s Spago Bevery Hills.

Along with access to restaurants of every type and in every price range, Downtown residents get easy access to food events, whether it is the regular Gaslamp restaurant tastings or special events like Share Our Strength’s Taste of the Nation. Set for April 13 at the Hotel Solamar, the 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. food festival will feature the efforts of chefs from the hotel’s JSix along with Mistral at Loews Coronado Bay Resort, Anthology, Oceanaire Seafood Room, 1500 Ocean at Hotel del Coronado, Jack’s La Jolla, Addison at The Grand Del Mar, Jade Theatre, A.R. Valentien at The Lodge at Torrey Pines, Arterra, Currant Brasserie, Grant Grill at U.S. Grant Hotel, Dish at Universal, Blue Coral, Quarter Kitchen at The Ivy Hotel, Molly’s Fine Dining, Georges California Modern, Blanca, Nine Ten and Barona. Tickets are $95. Last year’s event raised $567,000 in San Diego alone. More
information is at tasteofthenation.org.

Many of the region’s biggest entertainment draws also call Downtown home. In May, the Red Bull air races will take to the skies for their second race above the bay. The lightning fast airplanes are often heard but not seen, with their World War II fighter-plane like buzz adding an exciting audio ambience. This year, the races will be preceded by the Sea & Air Parade on May 3 that begins at 11 a.m. and travels San Diego Big Bay. Free of charge, it allows the general public to view Navy ships including an aircraft carrier, cruiser, destroyer, and to watch Air Force planes and jets flying through the skies. Old school military also will be on display in a mock battle between two tall ships, the Californian and the HMS Surprise.

Downtown’s art scene is growing strongly, from higher profile organizations such as New Children’s Museum to the funky, like the Ink Spot in the Art Center Lofts at 710 13th St. Open only during classes and events, it actually is home to San Diego Writers Ink. The friendly space now is hosting “Trifectas,” a photography exhibit featuring the work of Bill Peters. A math teacher by trade, his compositions include rural landscapes as well as detailed close-ups.

Art, and beautiful people, are included in the $3 admission price to TNT at The Museum of Contemporary Art.

The first Thursday of every month the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego hosts TNT — Thursday Night Thing — at its 18,000 square feet of exhibit space on Kettner Boulevard in both America Plaza and the Santa Fe Depot across the street. With music, food and a low donation expectation of $3 per person, the events average 1,000 guests, drawing heavily from the hip and beautiful. Museum Director Hugh Davies assures that taking your teenage children is a winning proposition. Depending on what is scheduled, they likely will be able to explain a “slide jam” and enjoy the DJ lessons. You may be able to help translate the poetry readings. The after-party at a Downtown hotel or restaurant is 21 and up.

If you don’t count Balboa Park, Downtown is shy on park space, with about 79 acres within its boundaries. But development officials are on the case, with 52 acres of new parks in the works. The goal is a system that uses larger parks and “pocket parks” to put open space within a five- to 10-minute walk of anyplace Downtown.

Even as home building slows, the area maintains that feeling of moving forward, getting better. Redevelopment officials will explain that’s what you get by wisely investing $964 million over 30 years and using it to encourage $9.57 billion in private sector contributions. The results have brought 14,800 new homes (2,650 price-restricted), 6,800 new hotel rooms and 6.9 million square feet of office and retail space. They also are why the population has grown past 30,000 and the employee count past 60,000.

The opening of the Balboa Theatre has added even more event options, including an upcoming performance by Jack Hanna, America’s second most famous zoo keeper.

Downtown’s theater scene is rich with established performing organizations such as San Diego Opera and the San Diego Rep and newer small venues like the Tenth Avenue Theatre, shared by several small performing groups. The newest addition is the meticulously and expensively ($26.5 million) restored Balboa Theatre, which is offering a busy something-for-everyone schedule. Take April 20, for example. Jack Hanna, the director emeritus of the Columbus Zoo & Aquarium and a frequent guest on “Late Night with David Letterman,” will perform live. Tickets are $25, 40 and $50. Information is at sandiegotheatres.org.

For many Downtown residents, as the experience grows on them, they become even more urban in thinking. For Joe Hill that means chucking a phobia. “I am afraid of heights, so I only went up 10 floors (at The Legend) and then had the viewing deck three floors below me,” he says. “I’ve gotten over that now. I’m ready to live higher.”

— Tim McClain