If it seems like you've read more than a few news stories lately about fresh parks coming to San Diego, you wouldn't be mistaken.
Just last week, Port of San Diego officials broke ground on a $65 million open space that will wrap around the USS Midway Museum along the Embarcadero. Freedom Park will stretch 10 acres from the west end of Navy Pier to the Bob Hope Memorial when it's completed in 2028.
Also, the park formerly known as Petco Park's Park in the Park (that's a lot of park) recently got a $20 million overhaul and reopened just in time for the 2024 San Diego Padres season with added amenities for the public. Then there's the newly minted Children's Park on Island Avenue, coming in at $9 million.
The most recent and most expensive city-owned development is underway in East Village, though, where San Diego leaders have budgeted $80 million to transform a four-acre lot into a sprawling recreation area for literally the whole family. Kids can climb the jungle gym or frolic in the splash pad, dogs can run at the off-leash park, and adults can lounge on the central lawn. When the first phase of the project opens in mid- to late 2025, there will also be game tables, public art, a stage for outdoor entertainment, a two-story community center and a pricey underground paid parking garage.
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All these parks are part of the city's vision to make an interconnected greenway throughout San Diego with a focus on developing active play spaces downtown, according to San Diego's Urban Division Deputy Director, Brian Schoenfisch.
"It's part of the type of infrastructure that we are focused on investing in here in downtown San Diego, which is really focused on bringing people out, getting people out of their cars ... [and] include amenities that will attract families and attract people downtown, Schoenfisch said. "There's really this focus on creative, active play space all throughout downtown right now."
While there is no official master plan yet in place to create this interconnected park plan, the Uban Division has built a collection of concepts to envision this "green paradise." They say the idea originates from San Diego's first city planner John Nolen's vision for a city with greenways connecting Balboa Park to the San Diego Bay. While that plan never came to fruition in the way Nolen envisioned, the city of San Diego is working toward the concept 120 years later.
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"Really the anchor of that is East Village Green," Schoenfisch said.
East Village Green started construction in August of this year, but the project caught some recent attention online when two historic homes that were situated along G and 14th Streets were moved from their long-lived location on April 13.
"Even the houses can't afford the rent in San Diego," one Redditer commented.
But the eviction wasn't as harsh as it appeared: The late-1800 and early 1900 homes known by historians as The Murray Apartments and the Daggett Family Residence were moved for the second time in their lifetimes — this journey was just around the block to their new permanent locations along F Street. They are now staged next to another retro-looking home that is privately owned.
Working to ensure the two Victorian-style homes were protected during their move and restored to a condition as historically accurate as possible is architect and consultant David Marshall, president of Heritage Architecture and Planning. He and his team have quite a bit of experience with historic remodels, most recently working with the Hotel Del Coronado to ensure its $160 million renovation preserved the iconic red-topped buildings in its original Victorian style.
The East Village Green project was pretty moderate in comparison. It took just a few hours and "went [off] without a hitch," Marshall said.
"They put them on wheeled dollies with hydraulic lifts on them, and then they pull them with the truck," Marshall said, "and they basically took them around the corner in order to get them to their site. "They were taken east on G Street and then north on 15th Street around to their new foundations."
Photos: East Village Park Approved with $80M Price Tag, 16 Years After Original Design
The homes were privately owned before the city acquired them and weren't in the best condition. Marshall said they found termites, dry rot and several renovations that weren't accurate to their time period. The architects have already treated the houses with fresh coats of paint in their original color schemes, which were found buried under several layers of paint. The city is paying to restore the interior of the homes as well and plans to open them to the public in the future, although their use won't be determined until another round of public input and, more importantly, funding approval.
As for why they needed to be moved, the two homes were sitting in a prime location for the project’s dog park, which was one of the community's major asks during the planning process for East Village Green, according to Schoenfisch. The homes were also previously adjacent to 14th Street, which will now be a pedestrian promenade that can be closed off with bollards for a farmers' market or other community events.
"It's going to be a great venue for the community to have events, whether it's closing off 14th Street or using the new stage that will be at the center of the park," Schoenfisch said. "It certainly is something that this community has long desired."
The project has been in the making for nearly two decades and was first presented as part of the updated downtown community plan in 2006. A proposal was finally approved by the San Diego City Council in December 2019 and got the green light in 2022 to move into the next phase after securing additional funding, which would allow for the 185-space parking garage but eliminate some proposed cafes and a shade structure.
"It took a long time to figure out how to best treat these buildings, how the park would be located and arranged," Marshall said. "The city had to purchase various properties in order to create this downtown urban park. And it was a big challenge. It's a long-term project and we're in the final home stretch."
