DOWNTOWN SAN DIEGO – Two developers vying to rebuild San Diego's City Hall heard one thing loud and clear from the public: People want a more open city government.
So when the two firms unveiled their proposals yesterday, there was a common thread – transparency.
Both plans enclose the City Council chamber in glass and place it at or near the ground floor. It's a pronounced change from the current, 1960s-era City Hall, where the council meets on the 12th floor of a 13-story building and the mayor's office is one floor below.
Otherwise, the proposals offer two starkly different views on how to overhaul the four-block Civic Center.
|
Gerding Edlen
 2.8 million square feet of new development, including a 1 million-square-foot civic building, 695 apartments, 16 stores including a grocery market and up to four levels of underground parking
On-site treatment plant to reclaim building's water
B Street reopened to cars; Second Avenue reopened between A and B streets
Public “porch” atop stand-alone pavilion housing City Council chambers
Gerding Edlen Development
Gerding Edlen of Portland proposes a 500-foot iconic saillike building and 2 million square feet of nearby private development.
|
Hines
City office building, 600,000 square feet; City Hall, 115,000 square feet. Only private development proposed is small retail shops because Hines feels downtown market won't support anything more.
City “Commons”: landscaped plaza and pavilion with cafe
Renovated parking structure at current site
B Street reopened to cars between First and Third avenues
Hines Corp.
Houston-based Hines Corp. focuses on a new 19-story city office building and a four-story glass City Hall with a public patio on top.
Online: See detailed proposals and a gallery of renderings – and pick your favorite plan in a poll – at uniontrib.com/more
/cityhalldesigns
Poll
|
|
One offers a 500-foot iconic saillike building with wind turbines at the top and about 2 million square feet of private development on the surrounding blocks. The complex would generate some of its own energy from wind and solar panels.
The other: Virtually no private development, focusing instead on a new 19-story city office building and a four-story glass City Hall with a public patio on top.
The smaller development firm, Gerding Edlen of Portland, is proposing the grander scale. Spokesman Tom Cody says his company thinks the mix of private offices, housing and a hotel can be viable if it is built over seven to 12 years.
“This is really about vibrancy. How can we take this anchor of the city, this linchpin, and leverage it into a larger, more meaningful district,” Cody said.
International giant Hines Corp., based in Houston, is billing its plan as the more conservative, low-risk bet for a city still struggling with its finances.
“It provides the city with the most certainty. They know what their costs are going to be,” said Paul Twardowski of Hines. “The city should not be entering risky ventures right now. The city should be taking conservative approaches.”
Both developers say they can save the city money, as a consultant has projected that it will cost $1 billion over the next 50 years to run the current city buildings and continue to lease private office space for the overflow of public workers.
Hines and Gerding say their proposals will cost less than that, but no financial details were released yesterday. Those will come in about two weeks, according to the Centre City Development Corp., the nonprofit city agency overseeing the process.
The general structure of each deal was revealed. The Hines scenario involves the city keeping ownership of its land but leasing the new buildings from a financing company, possibly Hines, for 30 years.
In Gerding's version, a nonprofit group could buy the land and the city would lease the civic building from it. Or, if the city wants to keep ownership, the new City Hall could be paid for through tax-exempt financing.
One big difference in the two plans: Treatment of C Street, the rundown trolley corridor that downtown officials have wanted to spruce up for years.
In the Hines proposal, City Hall faces toward B Street with a grassy public plaza in front. C Street would get some shops along the back of the building. Hines' Twardowski said he thinks that's a good fit.
“The charge from CCDC was to activate and stimulate C Street. We think you don't do that by pulling buildings away and having a vast plaza that is not really comfortable to be in,” he said.
Gerding took the opposite approach. Its civic tower and plaza face C Street, meaning they will get better light and embrace the transit system there, Gerding executives said.
More than 3,200 city employees now work in 1 million square feet spread across eight downtown buildings, four of which the city owns.
City officials want to demolish the city-owned towers and build enough office space to house all downtown city workers there.
Mayor Jerry Sanders has said the project won't move forward if it costs the city more than the existing leases and maintenance would cost.
Jeanette Steele: (619) 293-1030; jen.steele@uniontrib.com
