San Diego thinking big: big projects, big price tags

San Diego has pretty much shed its image as a big small town, at least by the measure of potentially transformative proposals that could reshape the region for decades to come.

Some of them are big and exciting, some big and scary— and often they are both. All of them are costly in terms of dollars and, potentially, in their impact on the land.

Whether they are the right things to do will be endlessly debated, even after some come to fruition — if they get that far.

Providing reliable, and ideally less expensive, water and developing a transportation system that can handle the needs for generations are vital to the county’s future.

Yet a proposed $5 billion pipeline from Imperial County that would travel through the pristine AnzaBorrego Desert State Park — and bore through its mountains — is jaw-dropping in its audacity.

So, too, is the nearly $180 billion futuristic transportation system that would involve high-speed trains, hundreds of miles of new trolley tracks, autonomous vehicles and a $4 billion central station near the airport.

While not part of one project, several large developments moving forward along San Diego Bay will substantially alter what some refer to as the region’s “front porch,” where the debate over public access vs. commercialization has been the focus of proposed changes there.

That’s in addition to other ongoing projects destined to make their mark, including the new San Diego State University campus and football stadium under construction in Mission Valley, expansion of UC San Diego, and the Pure Water San Diego recycling program and desalination operations.

When taken together, it can all be a bit dizzying. But these projects will be years and decades in the making — for those that come to pass — and are not top-ofmind concerns at the moment for most San Diegans, who continue to navigate the health and economic threats posed by the coronavirus pandemic.

Besides, the SANDAG transportation plan and the desert pipeline are still largely in the conceptual stages, with go/no-go decisions a ways off.

Whether these ongoing and proposed projects will work as advertised, stick to their price tags, and benefit the region as promised remains to be seen. They all have their doubters.

Regardless, just by moving forward, the plans poke another hole in San Diego’s reputation as a small-thinking town, which in the long view of history wasn’t always deserved.

It’s a familiar theme that cycles through public discourse periodically. After he was elected mayor of San Diego in November, Todd Gloria expressed frustration that the campaign focused on “scooters and vacation rentals instead of homelessness and infrastructure.

“That’s what a small town would do,” he told the Voice of San Diego.

Worries about the lack of big-town presence stems from a number of things. Critics said both the San Diego Concourse complex and the San Diego Convention Center were too small shortly after they were completed in 1964 and 1989,

respectively.

San Diego’s inability to get a new football stadium for the Chargers, and subsequently losing the team to Los Angeles, may have added to that angst. That’s been tempered, of course, by the suspicion that the Chargers’ ownership had wanted to head north for some time.

But San Diego did originally get the Chargers from Los Angeles, build what was then a state-of-the-art stadium, and in the modern

era developed the widely acclaimed Petco Park, though the Padres downtown home had its fits and starts.

Still, being in the shadow of Los Angeles has contributed to that second-city aura. While the civic psyche wasn’t dreaming of mirroring the megalopolis to the north, San Diego leaders coveted the influence of both L.A. and San Francisco.

Yet a lot of big things happened here to shape the region.

It was quite a feat when tiny San Diego landed a major Navy installation over the course of many years beginning more than a century ago. The San Diego Zoo grew out of abandoned animal exhibits at the 1915 Panama-California Exposition, which

itself was a big deal.

The exposition took place in Balboa Park, which was created when some local leaders in the previous century set aside a huge expanse of open land well north of the new, small downtown. Some people thought they were nuts.

The research and scientific mecca here has become world-renowned, Mission Bay was developed into the country’s largest aquatic park of its kind, and the establishment of a University of California campus in 1960 is universally viewed as a watershed moment.

A lot of that was made possible by federal, state and private financing, in addition to local resources.

Of course, there were big hopes that were dashed — like Los Angeles becoming

the Southern California terminus for the intercontinental rail system instead of San Diego.

Los Angeles has a lot to do with the motivation for the water pipeline proposed by San Diego County Water Authority Chairman Jim Madaffer. San Diego has long relied on the Los Angeles-based Metropolitan Water District for its supplies, and even though the county has been building its own independent sources in recent years, it needs MWD’s conveyance network to bring the water here.

Madaffer says the $5 billion pipeline will be cheaper in the long run by avoiding MWD fees. Critics are skeptical and also point out the project would bring no new water to the region, according to a report by

Joshua Emerson Smith of The San Diego UnionTribune.

Environmentalists and Borrego Springs residents already are decrying the potential damage the project would do to the unique desert landscape.

The impact on another beautiful public resource, San Diego Bay, was one of the reasons why it has taken years for billions of dollars in private development to wend its way through the San Diego Unified Port District. The projects targeted for public tidelands controlled by the port at times were being sent back to the drawing board, in part, to provide alternatives for lower-cost lodging and public facilities in addition to the hotels, shops and restaurants.

The biggest and most controversial of all of these projects is the “5 Big Moves” transportation plan envisioned by Hasan Ikhrata, executive director of the San Diego Association of Governments.

The proposal would transform how people move around the county by 2050. There would still be highways, though enhanced by technology, but the system would focus on various forms of mass transit. Predictably, a lot of people aren’t convinced that’s the way to go.

It’s a big idea and the $180 billion price tag will require a big tax increase.

Current California laws don’t make that easy, and, as history has shown, neither do San Diego voters.

SATELLITE DEAL:

Southern Californiabased Virgin Orbit said Tuesday it has signed an agreement to launch a pair of small satellites for a Polish company later this year. The agreement with SatRevolution of Wroclaw, Poland, comes less than a month after Virgin Orbit conducted the first successful flight of its air-launched LauncherOne rocket.

Current homeowners and those looking to buy a home have moved the importance of having suitable outdoor space higher on their priority list during the coronavirus pandemic. As more are forced to work and learn from home, the National Kitchen & Bath Association reports a 65 percent surge in interest among its membership in outdoor living projects.

Among the most desired attribute for backyards is ample space for upgraded seating and fire pits. Other important factors for people looking to enhance their outdoor space include areas conducive to entertaining while offering plenty of privacy from neighbors.

Meanwhile, conforming nopoint 30-year fixed mortgage rates are averaging 2.75 percent and 15-year rates are near 2.25 percent.