Gateway Park Renamed Harbaugh Trails
Name change
honors donor who contributed $1.1 million for park
Source: San Diego Union Tribune, By: Edward Sifuentes, January 13, 2015
Source: San Diego Union Tribune, By: Edward Sifuentes, January 13, 2015
Mayor Lesa Heebner speaks to
supporters celebrating a $1.15 million gift at the Harbaugh Seaside Trails on
Tuesday in Solana Beach, California. The George and Betty Harbaugh Charitable
Foundation gifted the money for the establishment of the park at the north end
of Solana Beach along Coast Highway. — Eduardo Contreras
SOLANA BEACH — A Solana Beach bluff-top property that had
long been sought by developers will now be a park named Harbaugh Seaside
Trails, in honor of a family who donated $1.1 million to help preserve the
land, officials announced Tuesday.
Known as the Gateway property, the 3.44-acre parcel sits
along the east side of Coast Highway 101 just south of the San Elijo Lagoon. It
provides vast, picturesque views of the lagoon and the ocean.
For decades, developers and residents fought bitterly over
the future of the property, as several hotel and condominium projects were
proposed and ultimately rejected. The land eventually fell into foreclosure.
Eager to see the property preserved, the nonprofit San Elijo
Conservancy bought it in 2011 for $3.75 million, using money borrowed from
various sources. The group had been working ever since to pay off that debt.
On Tuesday, the Conservancy held a news conference to
announce the sizable donation from The George & Betty Harbaugh Charitable
Foundation and pushed them toward the end of that goal.
“Right now, this site is secure, it will never be
developed,” said Doug Gibson, executive director and principal scientist with
the conservancy.
Dozens of residents and officials, including Supervisor Dave
Roberts and Solana Beach Mayor Lesa Heebner, attended Tuesday’s event, held at
the entrance to the property.
Joe Balla, director of the Harbaugh foundation, said he was
glad to honor George and Betty Harbaugh with the donation. George Harbaugh and
his family owned Log Realty, a company that owned and operated commercial and
real estate properties in the county.
Both George and Betty loved wildlife and nature and would
have loved the property, Balla said.
“It is an amazing site and the views of the coastline and
the ocean are incomparable,” Balla said. “It is with great pride and gratitude
that our foundation has the opportunity to write a happy ending to the Gateway
saga.”
The people who had pushed for Solana Beach’s incorporation
in 1986 did so in part because they were outraged that the county had approved
plans for a hotel on the site.
The development called for an eight-story, 171-room hotel
complex. That project failed to materialize. Over the years, developers offered
other proposals with little success and strong resistance from Solana Beach
residents.
In 2004, developer Ken Losch planned a 98-room hotel,
17-unit condominium building and a 2,000-square-foot restaurant.
That proposal was met with such resistance that the Solana
Beach View Assessment Committee held two meetings and nine hours of public
testimony, nearly all of it in opposition, before rejecting the project,
according to news reports at the time.
Two years later, the proposal was changed to a 30-unit combination
of hotel and condos room with a club house and an outdoor pool and spa.
Gibson said the San Elijo Lagoon Conservancy offered to buy
the property in 2006 but the $16 million asking price was too high for the
group to afford.
Eventually, Losch’s company went into bankruptcy and the
property was sold.
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