Port to Host Meeting for Lane Field Public Open Space

Wednesday, 11 January 2012

The Port of San Diego is inviting the public to attend a meeting on a proposed park-plaza for San Diego's Lane Field on Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012.

The meeting will be held from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. in the Training Room at the Port of San Diego's Administration Building, 3165 Pacific Highway, San Diego (map).

The park-plaza would be built at the corner of West Broadway and North Harbor Drive on San Diego's North Embarcadero. The site is called Lane Field because the old Pacific League Padres used to play in a baseball park by that name at that location.

At the meeting, the public can review and comment on an update of the park-plaza that was drafted following a public meeting in August 2011.

The public open space is part of the Port District's North Embarcadero Visionary Plan. It encompasses approximately 1.66 acres next to a proposed hotel project on Lane Field.

Representatives from Civitas, a private firm that is part of the design team for the North Embarcadero improvements, will join Port District staff in discussing the design for the park-plaza.

The Lane Field development calls for construction of two hotels with a total of 800 rooms. The project also includes about 60,000 square feet in retail space, two acres of public space and approximately 1,000 parking spots. It is estimated that the project will earn $7 million annually in rent.

In August 2010, Lane Field San Diego Developers, LLC, worked with the Port of San Diego to change the footprint of the Lane Field project to allow more public space for the North Embarcadero Visionary Plan's first phase.

The North Embarcadero Visionary Plan would redevelop about a mile and a half of waterfront along North Harbor Drive, from Laurel Street to Navy Pier with public plazas, landscaping, better traffic flow and public art. The North Embarcadero project is a joint effort by the Port, Centre City Development Corporation and the City of San Diego.

Phase I of the project, which broke ground Jan. 5, stretches from the front of the B Street Cruise Ship Terminal to the front of Navy Pier and a small portion of West Broadway from Harbor Drive to just past Pacific Highway.

The Port of San Diego was created by the state Legislature to manage San Diego Bay and surrounding waterfront land in December 1962. The Port has been responsible for $1.7 billion in public improvements in its five member cities.

The Port oversees two maritime cargo terminals, a cruise ship terminal, 17 public parks, various wildlife reserves and environmental initiatives, the Harbor Police Department and the leases of more than 600 tenant and sub-tenant businesses around San Diego Bay.