DOWNTOWN PARK PLAN SHIFTS AS COST RISES

East Village Green bids come in high; two cafe buildings scrapped

After years of delays, the city of San Diego is ready to make good on its long-promised downtown park, East Village Green — albeit with a revised budget that has ballooned beyond recognition and no longer has room for a few features that could be key to the park’s success.

City Council members will vote today on whether to allocate an additional $27.3 million from downtown-specific funds to the now $79.6 million project. The action, if approved, tees up construction to start in August on the first phase of East Village Green, or 2 acres of public park amenities, including downtown’s first recreation center.

Per the updated timeline, the project should be completed in February 2025.

The latest ask, which does not include money from the city’s general fund, comes 21⁄2 years after the council approved a $52.3 million budget for the park. Since then, the city has worked to secure permits. In late 2021, Civic San Diego solicited bids for construction.

“Both qualifying bids blew the budget significantly,” said Christina Bibler, who is the city’s director of economic development and noted that increases to construction costs over time were to blame. “It was a shock to everyone. It was much more excessive than we had ever expected.”

First conceived between 2004 and 2006, during the downtown community plan update, East Village Green is meant to accommodate downtown’s booming population, which is expected to grow to 46,000 residents.

The park will eventually encompass the 4 acres that take up one entire downtown block (or the west block) and the adjacent dou

ble block (or the east block) between 13th, F, 15th and G streets. Only the first, 2-acre phase is a given as the city does not own the Smart & Final parcel or the SDG&E plant site at 14th and F.

The first phase of East Village Green calls for development of the entire west block and pieces of the east block. Amenities include an 8,500-square-foot children’s play area with a splash pad, an 11,200-square-foot event lawn alongside a performance pavilion designed for outdoor concerts, a paid parking garage with 182 spaces, two dog parks, outdoor games and a more pedestrian-friendly version of 14th Street that will be closed to car traffic on weekends.

The plan also calls for a 14,200-square-foot, twostory recreation center with a gymnasium for basketball and pickleball, a demonstration kitchen and community room, city staff offices and public restrooms.

However, two previously planned cafe buildings — one west of the event lawn and another by the dog parks — have been stripped from the project to cut costs. Construction management company Barnhart-Reese Construction, which had the lowest qualifying bid and will build the park if the new budget is approved, estimated a cost of $1.3 million to build both structures. The city has also nixed an ornamental shade structure for the performance pavilion and will use chain-link fencing instead of decorative fencing to save money.

Even with the deductions, the hard cost to construct the project’s facilities is $60.6 million, with $12.9 million more required for design work and staff-related costs, according to a report prepared for council members. The city is also budgeting more than $6 million for contingency costs, for a total project cost of $79.6 million.

More than half of the facilities’ cost — or $34.9 million — is eaten up by the 182space, two-level underground parking garage that is meant for parkgoers, staff and monthly pass holders. At roughly $191,480 per space, the garage is substantially more expensive than other underground parking structures, which average $60,000 to $65,000 per space, said Nathan Moeder, who is a principal with real estate analysts London Moeder Advisors.

“The foundational elements of the park are being lumped into the fee for the cost of the garage, including excavation, exporting of soils, all the grading, the concrete, the steel, the fire suppression systems, the plumbing, the electrical, all the stormwater treatment,” said Brian Schoenfisch, who runs the city’s downtown department. “There’s no (costper-space) equivalent.”

San Diego is proposing to fill the gap between the previously approved budget and the current one by cobbling together money from a handful of downtown-specific funds. The bulk of the difference, or $22.6 million, is coming from downtown development impact fees, which developers pay when they construct a project downtown. The money is reserved for public facilities such as fire stations, public parks and street improvements. The city only has $17.7 million available in downtown development impact fees to spend, but is anticipating an additional $4.9 million in fees collected from projects already in the pipeline.

The remaining required funds will be allocated from downtown parking revenue pots, as well as from a fund that collects fees developers pay to increase the density of their projects.

The allocations, which drain and continue to obligate the downtown development impact fee fund, may come at the expense of funding future public facilities downtown.

“Downtown really has prioritized East Village Green, and they get the opportunity to have money that’s been dedicated downtown spent here,” Bibler said. “We absolutely did not take away from any other community to get this done.”

Time is also of the essence. The Barnhart-Reese bid, which was already extended by the firm for a 90day period to allow the city to line up financing, expires at the end of the month.

While the cost of the park is a lot more than anticipated, it’s not unexpected given the increased cost of building materials and the limited availability of materials, said Michael Stepner, who served on the city’s parks and recreation board and teaches urban design at the NewSchool of Architecture & Design.

“East Village needs that park,” he said. “With all the construction that’s going on, and the housing that’s going in all around, I think people need a place where they can gather.”

The park, he said, will pay for itself by stimulating additional investment in East Village and encouraging development of neighboring parcels.

At the same time, Stepner says the city, which will also be charged with running the park, is being shortsighted in scrapping the cafe buildings.

“I understand you can save some money by not building those two structures. On the other hand, I think that’s part of what activates a park,” he said. “Places where you get food, places where you can get an ice cream bar for your kids, maybe even a place where you can rent out bikes, those are really central features as much as ... playground equipment.”

That’s because the person operating a concession stand or cafe constantly has eyes on the park, meaning their presence helps thwart crime, drug use and other unwanted activities, Stepner said.

“If it’s just a park with nobody officially there or a ranger coming by every once in a while, you lose that kind of management control that I think is necessary,” he said.

Civic San Diego, the city’s former downtown planning agency, is overseeing the construction of East Village Green. City Council members will also vote today to amend the city’s contractual agreement with the not-forprofit to account for the higher project cost and revised timeline.