A Sensitive Plan for the Waterfront

SAN DIEGO â€”  The lull in downtown development offers a chance to critically assess the results of the 1980s building boom and consider how new projects might avoid past mistakes. One constant subject of debate involves the waterfront.

For the past decade, the question of whether high-rises belong along the bay has sparked heated discussion between environmental groups--such as Citizens Coordinate for Century IIIs, a nonprofit environmental watchdog--and others who believe tall buildings make a positive contribution by revitalizing downtown with dense concentrations of people.

Several high-rises proposed along Harbor Drive during the early 1980s threatened to block waterfront views and pedestrian access, and to turn streets and sidewalks near what should be an expansive, open bayfront into dark canyons.

One of these was completed earlier this year. One Harbor Drive, a pair of condominium towers at Harbor Drive and 3rd Avenue, is a hokey piece of architecture, with its spaceship towers and clunky suburban mall base.

The project does, however, signal a direction toward decent waterfront high-rise design. Its towers are slender, leaving the skyline open, and it has a base with retail space and good landscape design that make strong connections to the “linear park� along Harbor Drive, a landscaped pedestrian and bike promenade that parallels the trolley tracks.

One Harbor Drive helps show that height is not the real culprit responsible for ruining San Diego’s bayfront for the general public. The real villains are lower, wide structures such as the San Diego Convention Center and the bases of the Marriott and Hyatt hotels next door (the Hyatt opens Dec. 15), which together form a blockade along Harbor Drive.

Another spoiler is CityFront Terrace, a 13-story condominium building scheduled to open next year on Market Street. Though not yet finished, the building stretches unbroken for more than 300 feet, looming like the wide, impenetrable hull of an aircraft carrier come ashore.

“There is still a concern with protecting the waterfront,� said architect Fred Marks, president of C III. “But you also need to consider that you can’t have everything. If we can save one area (the Gaslamp Quarter) and not destroy another (the waterfront), that’s the approach you have to take.�

Outspoken when it takes issue with development, C III did not resist city approval this fall of 101 California, a mix of low urban townhomes and a high-rise condominium tower including street-level retail. The project is being developed by a partnership of S.D. Malkin Properties and Catellus Development for a full-block site facing Harbor Drive between Kettner Boulevard and California Street.

101 California capitalizes on successes and failures of assorted earlier downtown projects, especially those along the waterfront, to offer several sensible design details.

No financing is in sight for the project, and there’s no guarantee it will happen. Even the developers say it won’t begin construction until at least 1994, but whether or not it gets built, the building is useful as a prototype.

Designed by architect Frank Williams of New York in collaboration with architect Frank Wolden of City Design in San Diego, the project offers the prospect of high-rise development without blockbuster impact.

The project is a reincarnation of Park Plaza (also designed by Williams and Wolden), a similar development proposed by Malkin for a site at the foot of 5th Avenue in the Gaslamp Quarter downtown. Park Plaza was rejected by city officials who felt its 27-story tower would overpower the modest scale of the historic Gaslamp.

But it was a well-designed project, and the city’s redevelopment staff worked with Malkin to find a new site. As a result, Malkin got together with Catellus, and Park Plaza became 101 California.

For developer Jeremy Cohen of Malkin Properties, 101 California brings together everything he learned about the design of dense urban projects while unsuccessfully seeking approval for Park Plaza.

Cohen exhibits a solid grasp of good urban design principles. In his Gaslamp Quarter office, he enthusiastically used pictures of the area around Central Park in New York to illustrate how the impact of big buildings can be minimized with towers that step back from lower bases, with bases of several buildings lined up along the edge of sidewalks to give these public spaces an urban feel.

Weary of unsuccessful attempts to gain approval for Park Plaza, Cohen says that with 101 California, “we set out to see if we could design a building that would respond to community needs. We wanted to find a way not to do a full-block monolith.’

Architects Williams and Wolden redesigned Park Plaza for the new location. Four distinctive sides of the project relate to the character of adjacent development.

Under redevelopment plans for downtown, Harbor Drive will ultimately accommodate a string of waterfront residential towers. Williams and Wolden oriented 101 California’s high-rise to face this wide, tree-lined boulevard, which aims right at the southeastern corner of the property.

The building’s slim 33-story condominium tower at Harbor and Kettner would rest atop an 11-story base consistent with the height of the Embassy Suites Hotel next door. Along Harbor and Kettner, several ground-floor retail shops, including a corner cafe, would add life and color to 101 California.

Instead of building the tower out to the southeastern corner of the property, Williams and Wolden gave it a beveled corner, so that the front facade cuts across the corner and faces Harbor Drive, which approaches on a diagonal. This corner treatment frees up space for a corner plaza with several triangular reflecting pools.

And with the tower turned so its front facade faces the corner, its narrowest dimension aims at the heart of downtown, preserving views for workers in other high-rises closer to the downtown core.

Facing G Street on the north, which has a more modest, residential character than Harbor Drive, 101 California would feature two-story row homes in a sort of straightforward, latter-day Irving Gill style, with front stoops resting at the edge of the sidewalk.

These homes would continue around the corner along California Street, which is already landscaped as a pedestrian mall.

Cohen and his architects have come up with a fresh way of orchestrating auto and pedestrian circulation. Instead of funneling cars through obscure side entrances to two levels of underground parking, 101 California would give visitors a dramatic arrival experience. A driveway off Kettner would carry them into a central plaza with a narrow lane along two edges serving the townhomes, and a motor court at the back of the tower providing access to underground parking. This central park would give 101 California an identity. It would be a colorful, active, intimate mini-neighborhood in the midst of a big, bustling downtown.

Given the state of the economy for real estate development, 101 California is pie-in-the-sky at this point. One Harbor Drive had hoped to close escrows on 40 or 50 of its 202 units last spring, but none have closed yet, which puts a damper on 101 California. But even if the project is never built, developers and architects can use it as a valid model.

With its well-proportioned tower oriented for minimal impact on the skyline, its 11-story base matching the scale of the adjacent Embassy Suites Hotel and its ground-level shops and townhomes providing a lively streetscape, the project illustrates how dense high-rise development along the waterfront can make a positive contribution if handled with care.