REAL ESTATE: PROJECTED COST HITS $3.5B ON DOWNTOWN MEGA-REDEVELOPMENT
By Ray Huard
Monday, March 14, 2022

The price tag on a massive redevelopment that will replace Seaport Village on San Diego’s downtown waterfront has jumped from $2.5 billion to $3.5 billion under a revised plan.

The $1 billion increased cost of Seaport San Diego is due partly to a surge of new development downtown focused on job creation, which prompted Seaport developers – 1HWY1 – to rethink the project, adding hotel rooms and expanding other portions of the project that will include a 500-foot-tall observation tower that will itself contain a hotel.
 
The project also has grown from about 70 acres to 105 acres of land and water – and now includes about 36.6 acres of land and 68.5 acres of water stretching from Embarcadero Marina Park North to just south of the USS Midway Museum.

Concern over climate change also has led to some design changes that include raising the overall site an average of three feet, said Yehudi “Gaf” Gaffen, the founder and CEO of Gafcon, who formed 1HWY1 to develop Seaport San Diego.

SEAPORT VILLAGE (KUSI) – After many years of planning and designing, the Port of San Diego will finally consider a major makeover for Seaport Village.

The developer has finalized their plans and the Port of San Diego released those plans Tuesday morning.
 
KUSI’s Dan Plante was live from Seaport Village with more information.

$3.5B Seaport San Diego project grows to include 105 acres of land, water
BY JENNIFER VAN GROVE

With a more fully baked site plan and an estimated cost of $3.5 billion, the long-awaited Seaport San Diego project from developer 1HWY1 is now available for public examination.

Today, the Port of San Diego released the Seaport San Diego project description, a 167-page document with development specifics and narrative descriptions for each of the project’s seven land blocks and five water zones. The document, which is more than five years in the making, will go before port commissioners at the March 8 board meeting where they’ll get to weigh in on — but not approve — the latest iteration of the mega project that promises to substantially alter the city’s front porch.
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“We’re breaking the pencil, as I would call it, and cementing in place the final project,” said Yehudi “Gaf ” Gaffen, who runs 1HYW1. “It’s a one-of-a-kind, transformational mixed-use project on the water that I truly do believe is going to set the bar for other projects, if not in the United States then in the world.”

Backed in part by San Diego’s famed Jacobs family, Seaport San Diego is a total reimagining of downtown’s Central Embarcadero — the expansive, bayfront area that includes Seaport Village and follows the coast from Embarcadero Marina Park North to the G Street Mole, just south of the USS Midway Museum. Following a competitive bidding process, the port selected 1HWY1 in November 2016 to redevelop the subdistrict.

Over the years, the redevelopment effort has swelled in size and now includes 105 acres of land and water area — and 2.7 million square feet of mixed-use development — in and around San Diego Bay. It’s also ballooned in price, adding billions to the bottom line with each iteration presented to the port.
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Today, the program envisions a total of 2,058 hotel rooms spread across seven properties, including 400 rooms taking up 24 of the 34 stories planned for a 500- foot, skyline-defining observation tower at the foot of Pacific Highway. Additional features include 597,600 square feet of floating docks and fixed piers, 229,213 square feet of retail and restaurant space, 308,524 square feet of office space reserved for ocean researchrelated enterprises, a 129,900-square-foot public beach, and nearly 15 acres of parks and open space.

By DAVE SCHWAB | Downtown News
Plans to give Seaport Village a huge, distinctively San Diego “makeover” are still in play, though it’s taking longer than anticipated.

“A project of this size and nature doesn’t just happen — it evolves over time,” said Yehudi “Gaf” Gaffen, managing partner of Protea Waterfront Development, the team behind Seaport San Diego, a re-imagining of the 39-year-old, 90,000-square-foot Seaport Village waterfront shopping and dining complex.

“Our vision is to create a vibrant, experimental-based attraction near the water,” said Gaffen. “Our goal is for this to be a legacy project for more than just San Diego, that’s going to be transformational for the whole West Coast.”
Years in the making, the long-term Seaport Village redevelopment’s two major new attractions, an aquarium and an observational spire and platform, continue to anchor the project.

However, Gaffen noted there have been “enhancements” made to the overall project concept, which now includes construction of three, brand-new full-service hotels as well as a “new generation” student hostel. The hostel will have beds in shared rooms offering travelers less-expensive accommodations.

Another new feature of revitalizing Seaport Village will be the introduction of a “butterfly wonderland.” Gaffen said that project is based on an existing butterfly exhibition in Scottsdale, Arizona, which he described as “a magical, educational and entertaining experience for both kids and adults.”

Additionally, Gaffen noted the number of hotels in the project has now grown from three up to as many as six.
Meanwhile, the transition from old to new at Seaport Village continues. In October 2018, the Port of San Diego became the owner/landlord of Seaport Village, with Protea Property Management, Inc. (Protea) managing and operating the shopping and dining center for the Port.
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“Working in close collaboration with our partners, the Port of San Diego is revitalizing and enhancing the experience at Seaport Village for residents, visitors and the businesses that operate within it,” said Garry Bonelli, San Diego Board of Port Commissioners chair. “Our goal is to create excitement and energy within Seaport Village, and also strengthen our relationships with our tenants while maximizing revenues for the public’s benefit.”

The Glory DaysThere’s a decent chance San Diego’s fishermen and women have stopped reading this story by now, because it starts with a quote from a developer. Fishers have historically viewed developers as their most feared predator.

In a city like San Diego, the water’s edge is the gold vein, the bounty, the most valuable thing. And while many players are involved—the San Diego Unified Port District, the California Coastal Commission, the people of San Diego (who own the land)—the fight over it usually boils down to fishers versus developers. Boats versus hotels. Bait versus brunch.

Tuna Harbor—located at the end of G Street, sharing a parking lot with the Fish Market restaurant, the USS Midway, and the American Tuna Boat Association—is one of two remaining spots along San Diego Bay dedicated to commercial fishing (the other is Driscoll’s Wharf). Longtime San Diego fisherman David Haworth stands on the edge and points at things. To parking spots that read “Reserved for Commercial Fishermen.”

​To the swarm of pedestrians and tour buses clogging the lot. To an aging dock where lobster traps and nets are stacked like a working-class art installation. To the 100 or so boats, where men with reptilian skin tanned like news anchors repair, well, everything.

​From NBC 7 San Diego  
Ambitious plans to redevelop Seaport Village will affect one of San Diego's oldest industries -- fishing. NBC 7's May Tjoa has more. (Published Sunday, Jul 28, 2019)

The San Diego Union-Tribune announced the observation tower, which will be part of 1HWY1’s redevelopment of the Central Embarcadero.
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BIG’s hourglass-shaped tower takes inspiration from San Diego’s indoor-outdoor culture, with a stack of spinning discs at various vantage points.

The 70-acre Seaport San Diego project includes hotels, a 170,822-square-foot aquarium, 261,411 square feet of retail space, as well as office and leisure spaces.

Lasiter added: “Our major concern is that the existing development down at Seaport Village right now is easily accessible for a wide range of incomes.
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“There’s a lot of passive space, and anyone can go to Seaport Village and walk around. With the redevelopment, it might not be that way. Our focus is the public’s ability to recreate there at low or no cost.”

By Jennifer Van Grove, The San Diego Union-Tribune - A proposed observation tower at the edge of Pacific Highway is a polarizing symbol of change that could make or break the larger, $2.4 billion redevelopment effort planned for downtown’s Central Embarcadero.

​In some circles there is a sense that San Diego is missing an internationally recognizable calling card, as in a postcard-worthy — or in today’s vernacular, Instagrammable — destination that shouts, “Visit me.” The cylindrical tower with a cinched waist that is being touted as the high-flying replacement to a flat-by-comparison Seaport Village could change that.

That is, if California allows it.

A jaw-dropping symbol of change for the bayfront area that makes up downtown’s Central Embarcadero, the 500-foot tower is being heralded by developer 1HWY1 as the architectural focal point of its massive $2.4 billion Seaport San Diego project. Its location, where the bay ends and Pacific Highway begins, makes it geographically significant as well.

By Jim Parsons, Engineering News-Record - An industry-wide sellers’ market helped fuel record-setting merger-and-acquisition activity among engineering and construction firms in 2018, enabling buyers to better adapt to multiple trends reshaping the industry.

According to a recently released trends survey by FMI Capital Advisors Inc., the 534 industry transactions announced last year surpassed the previous record, set in 2015, by nearly 22%. The timing was right for such torrid activity, explains FMI Managing Director Alex Miller, particularly given the large “demographic backlog” of willing sellers.

“Many baby boomer owners who put off retirement because of the recession saw the current strong market as a good time to exit,” Miller explains.

Buyers were likewise plentiful, with heightened demand for technical expertise joining growth and service expansion as primary acquisition drivers, the survey found. “If you’re not growing, you struggle to create opportunities for people and retain talent,” says Dan Pleasant, COO of Fairfax, Va.-based Dewberry, which has made multiple acquisitions of regional engineering firms in recent years, including last year’s purchase of J3 Engineering Consultants Inc., Greenwood Village, Colo.

Pleasant says that while a primarily organic strategy tends to be easier for smaller companies, there comes a point where sustaining that pace requires a firm to look outward. Dewberry applies both approaches, he says, with approximately 40% of its recent growth coming via “strategic” acquisitions aimed at a particular region, market sector or service line