Here's something you might be interested in.
The San Diego Unified Port District has sent a request for proposals for a major economic study of port property. The consulting firm doing the study will be required to give a comprehensive listing of the types of business, industry sectors or economic generators on the Tidelands. Main subjects will be maritime trade, the cruise industry, the convention center, retail, ship/boat building and repair, and lodging. There is ongoing controversy on whether the current uses of the port, particularly for maritime trade, are the best usage.
The San Diego Unified Port District has sent a request for proposals for a major economic study of port property. The consulting firm doing the study will be required to give a comprehensive listing of the types of business, industry sectors or economic generators on the Tidelands. Main subjects will be maritime trade, the cruise industry, the convention center, retail, ship/boat building and repair, and lodging. There is ongoing controversy on whether the current uses of the port, particularly for maritime trade, are the best usage.
Have any odds come out yet on the findings/recommendations?
1 to 2 - Best use of land is a multi-purpose stadium
4 to 1 - Best use is more hotels
6 to 1 - Best use is more mixed retail/condo developments
500,000 to 1 - Best use is more park space
1,000,000 to 1 - Best use is to revert tidelands to natural state
It appears to me that the finding will probably be this: the best use is for a massively subsidized football stadium. Consultants who do such studies are prostitutes: they give the answers that they feel the entity paying the bill wants. Today, the port doesn't necessarily want the answer to be a stadium. But the pressures will build and the power within the port will change. The consultants will pick up those changes. Best, Don Bauder
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Fixed spacing -- one way to put it. Best, Don Bauder
Isn't "maritime trade" the purpose of a port? My dictionary definition of the term is "a city or town where ships load or unload." What is there in the definition that this port district does not understand.? For almost the entire term of its existence, this "port" has been using its lands for anything but maritime trade, complaining that it cannot compete with the mega-port of LA/Long Beach to the north. But then it did have an opportunity with cruise ships and spent millions expanding that capability just before the cruise lines decided to stop most of the cruises that originated here. Just can't win, can you guys?
Yes, the word "port" connotes maritime trade. But this is San Diego. The downtown overlords want to spend more than half a billion dollars the city doesn't have for a subsidized football stadium. Period, end of story. Best, Don Bauder