How is Downtown San Diego? (San Jose, Oceanside: city hall, neighborhood, movies)

[JSmithMMXVIII]

Originally Posted by eastcoastbias

Actually a good question now...

There is a TON of construction going on and in the past three years many homeless are now in all parts of downtown.

Horton Plaza is on life support. And seaport village will be soon

I heard Horton Plaza Mall will be shutting down...is this true? It is not something people often talk about, but it was mentioned a few months ago. If so, this would not be the first once major shopping mall to close down. But compared to the other malls that have closed down Horton Plaza does not seem as empty, so that is why I am wondering if there is any truth to this or not.

[moved]

It's not going to be shut down. It was sold to a developer and he is going to renovate most of it into office space.

[the topper]

Originally Posted by tstieber

Actually, this is by far the most sensible assessment the topper has made to date. Although a lot of being recent high rise construction has been completed, there are still several in progress and numerous additional ones coming out of the ground soon, in particular the massive Manchester Pacific Gateway project, which will be one largest commercial construction projects on the West Coast. Little Italy is definitely the current hot spots attached how come and it's not just south of Grape Street anymore. North of Grape Street is also seeing tons of Redevelopment, and there's lots more in the pipeline.

We don't hang out in the Gaslamp Quarter much anymore either. It's just so touristy. It is beautiful, we are excited about the Mann's Theater people reopening the movie theater, the new flagship Ghirardelli ice cream shop looks great, and there are some hidden gems that are good to eat or have drinks at. It's definitely one of the most architecturally beautiful Urban neighborhoods in the country. Just need to up the game again a bit.

The Horton Plaza Redevelopment will be starting momentarily and completed in only 2 years. If successful, it would be awesome to bring more than 4000 high paying Tech jobs into a modernized space into the heart of downtown, which I think is exactly what that area needs. And given San Diego's lower cost-of-living and lower salaries compared to Silicon Valley, along with an enormous educated workforce, it would be a no-brainer for companies to expand certain operations down here.

There really aren't that many surface parking lots in downtown or even in East Village, except on Market Street, and many of those are already spoken for and have approved projects on them. Topper, did you see the first buildings of the IDEA District in East Village, North Market St? That's going to be a mass construction project soon. The first buildings are up, but pretty much every existing old warehouse and / or Surface lot will be developed for office and Commercial. UC San Diego is taking significant space there. There will also be a multi block Urban Park.

Basically, everything that's not redeveloped now will be.

I'm surprised you had the impression that Pacific beach was booming compared to the Gaslamp. While there have been a few improvements, there seem to be a lot of vacant storefronts over there, and it seems sort of stuck in the 90s. There certainly aren't any establishments that are on any hot lists... I would still definitely rank the Gaslamp abobe PB. North Park is definitely in the biggest competitor to Little Italy and vice versa. South Park is awesome too, just a little smaller, Hillcrest is finally, finally getting into the new millennium with some notable Redevelopment and new restaurants, and Bankers Hill is starting a condo and apartment boom.

First of all: I did see part of the Idea project with innovative work/park and play in E. Village since I walked there. There are a lot of vacant store fronts in Gaslamp. Gaslamp is dated but did like the redo of Ghirardelli and ordered a sundae there. Stayed on 5th and Market. Now, and for a little while lots and lots of surface lots, especially near the court buildings and more will be created as they tear down some old court buildings since they moved into a new 22 story tower. Projects you mentioned that will get underway are not set in stone yet since construction costs have skyrocket and markets have changed a bit. Horton Pl. redo is not final since it has to be approved the city council. The movie theater in Gaslamp is still under construction and will be done for at least 6 months or so. I did mentioned Navy office project by Manchester.

I do like your positive assessment of your downtown but really not set in stone yet. For now, I stay north of downtown.

[the topper]

Originally Posted by moved

It's not going to be shut down. It was sold to a developer and he is going to renovate most of it into office space.

Of course it's going to shut down when they renovate the mall into an office complex.

[moved]

Originally Posted by the topper

Of course it's going to shut down when they renovate the mall into an office complex.

I guess you know everything, since you've obviously already talked to the developer as to exactly what he's going to do....

[sdurbanite]

Originally Posted by the topper

Update: Finally went to Downtown San Diego.

Good: several new high rises going up and Little Italy is the star of the downtown community. Bad: Horton's failure, C street transit mall disaster, Petco Park's low attendance rates, and lots of surface parking lots. Ugly: lots and lots of homeless people, thugs and criminals hanging out downtown. East Village is homeless and criminal central.

*Gaslamp is wearing out its novelty with lots of vacant storefronts and losing customer base to Pacific beach, Little Italy and North Park. So Gaslamp is just meh.

Glad you finally got a chance to visit. So how does it compare to Downtown San Jose? We all know you put it right up there with the best of them. What is areas of San Jose compare to Little Italy, the Gaslamp, Embarcadero, East Village, etc? Please provide streets, and neighborhoods.

I already know the Little Italy in San Jose has only 4 restaurants in one block.

[spoonman1]

The stuff about parking lots is pure comedy. Parking in DTSD is very hard to come by and pretty much the only time there are surface lots is when something is bulldozed and the property owner tries to make a few bucks before the new project is built.

[spoonman1]

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[sdurbanite]

Originally Posted by spoonman1

The stuff about parking lots is pure comedy. Parking in DTSD is very hard to come by and pretty much the only time there are surface lots is when something is bulldozed and the property owner tries to make a few bucks before the new project is built.

Consider the source. This is the same person who claims downtown San Jose is more vibrant than Paris.

[spoonman1]

Lolz. I thought it was that San Jose was giving NYC a run for it’s money. I guess if San Jose can take down NYC it can take down Paris with ease.