Port Wants New Vision for Harbor Island
Source: San Diego Union Tribune | By Lori Weisberg
| 4:49 p.m. Nov. 3, 2015 | Updated, 5:33 p.m.
Developers
will be able to offer up a variety of uses for transforming a 57-acre area on
the eastern end Harbor Island, but they will not be required to include any
hotels, even though a longstanding plan for the area allows for up to 500 hotel
rooms.
A formal
request for proposals was issued last week, even as the San Diego Unified Port
District pursues litigation against the Coastal Commission, claiming it has no
legal authority to require affordable lodging as a condition of new
development, such as a hotel.
A lawsuit
was filed last month by the Port in response to the commission’s
August denial of a plan that would have allowed a San Diego
developer, Sunroad Enterprises, to build a 175-room hotel on the eastern
portion of Harbor Island.
The
contentious issue is being closely watched up and down the state as Coastal
Commissioners seek to
strictly enforce a decades-old mandate they say guarantees all
income groups affordable lodging along the waterfront. The port’s proposal,
they said, did not ensure that such lodging, whether it be a youth hostel, a
campground or an RV park, would ever be developed on the public tidelands it
oversees.
In the
meantime, San Diego port commissioners want to see what kind of vision
developers come up with for what is a larger area of Harbor Island that is west
of the site where Sunroad wanted to build its hotel.
The 57-acre
area, which includes 13 acres of water overseen by the port, is home to a
number of uses that are being phased out, including several rental car agencies
that will be relocating to a new airport garage next year on Pacific Highway.
The proposed
development site, though, does not include the far eastern end of the peninsula
where Sunroad wanted to develop a hotel overlooking its 600-slip marina.
Sunroad’s
Uri Feldman last month urged the port to resubmit his hotel plans to the
Coastal Commission while also accepting the panel’s condition that it set aside
a portion of land for low-cost overnight accommodations.
The port,
however, opted to instead move ahead with a broader initiative to re-think
development of Harbor Island and at the same time generate replacement revenues
for expiring rental car leases. A developer could be chosen as early as next
year.
“We thought
this was a really unique opportunity because we have this amazing 57 acres on
Harbor Island that can be a complete blank slate and include a new vision for
the area,” said Penny Maus, the port’s real estate program manager. “For
visitors coming to San Diego from the airport, Harbor Island is often their
first impression of San Diego so this would be great to re-envision this area.”
Feldman did
not respond Tuesday to requests seeking comment on whether he still plans on
pursuing a hotel project. He had proposed a four-story limited-service hotel.
The port’s
formal solicitation suggests that developers can include in their proposals
retail and restaurant uses, maritime-related office space and a hotel. Harbor
Island currently has just two hotels, a 1,053-room Sheraton and a 211-room
Hilton.
The site,
the port states, is characterized as offering “one of the largest waterfront
redevelopment opportunities in San Diego, with “the potential to become iconic
in the region.”
While the
redevelopment effort may not lead to a new hotel, the port district is
continuing to work on an affordable lodging policy for its public tidelands
that it expects will ultimately go to the Coastal Commission. It could still be
a couple of years, though, before the port processed a new plan for Harbor
Island, Maus said.
“Since we’re
already moving forward with a policy on lower cost accommodations,” Maus said,
“we may have solved that issue with the commission prior to this being
submitted to them for review.”
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