The winning entry of an international competition, this plan offers San Diego a unique chance to authentically connect the social and physical fabric of the city to the bay. Positioned between an emerging neckless of bay-front amenities on the North Embarcadero and the unfortunate barrier like wall of tourist resources to the south, the site calls for a bold and engaging statement - not in terms of iconographic architecture but in civic activity, community recreation and physical engagement with the bay. The plan achieves these goals with two simple gestures. The existing city street system and familiar patterns of lot development are extended into the Port District jurisdiction and continued to the water's edge. Secondly, a great circular public boardwalk will offer strolling, pet walking and jogging with unique views both up and down the bay and back to the city. This paseo, or Arc Walk also acts as a breakwater and engages additional amenities for residents and tourists alike such as a 6.5 acre central park, a downtown beach with children's play area and volleyball court, Tuna Harbor and the G Street Mole amphitheater with it's floating stage. We think of it as a very large piece of "urban furniture".
As a by-product, the plan renders an eight year controversy to preserve the historic police station irrelevant. It will be saved. It also makes additional commercial square footage not only possible, but desirable. The design concept purposefully considers the larger urban context as part of the planning framework. It recognizes potential opportunities to make pedestrian, vehicular, and water-based connections to Coronado to the south, downtown and the Navy Complex to the north, G Street Mole to the west, and the Hyatt Complex to the east creating an integrated urban waterfront district structured around a core network of public open spaces. The plan was selected by the Port Commissioners and has been embraced enthusiastically by the public and earned a rare Orchid Award for the Port. The first phase of the Sasaki / Quigley plan, adaptive restoration of the Old Police Station and the implementation of a temporary park has been approved. The heart of the plan, the dredging of the Bay and creation of the arc walk and circular park will now test the Port's vision and resolve.
