What’s the Big Idea?

The 10th Avenue terminal has a big future — or at least that’s the idea

IT’S THE NEW BIG IDEA in downtown San Diego. One hundred acres of prime real estate on a deck 40 feet above the 10th Avenue marine terminal. It would contain a stadium that would not only be the new home of the San Diego Chargers but could also be converted to an arena for possible pro basketball and hockey teams. Mix in a high-rise hotel or two, an aquarium, a new cruise ship terminal, restaurants and other amenities, and the city could have an attraction that would dwarf Petco Park in impact, an economic locomotive producing thousands of jobs and more than enough tax revenue to take care of San Diego’s numerous financial headaches.

At least, that’s what developers Frank Gallagher and Richard Chase said when they brought the Big Idea to the ballot as Proposition B in November, when it was trounced with a 70 percent “no” vote. Even Mike Aguirre did better than that.

And yet, even though Gallagher and Chase met a nearly unanimous wall of official opposition stretching from the San Diego Unified Port District to the Secretary of the Navy, some observers are convinced that the fight over the Big Idea isn’t over.

The controversy starts with the 10th Avenue terminal itself, which is currently used to receive overseas cargo, including a wide variety of fruit and other perishables that are stored in a 300,000-square-foot cold-storage facility. The terminal also includes 25 acres of paved open space for the lay-down of steel from China and windmill blades destined for wind-power projects all over the United States. Critics, however, say the facility is underutilized and the Port exaggerates the success of the terminal.

“We’ve got what is considered a billion-dollar asset that is producing very little for the city of San Diego and the region, a net income somewhere between zero and $300,000,” says Dan Shea, a partner in Paradigm Investment Group. Shea is also cofounder of The Fans, Taxpayers and Business Alliance that supports keeping the Chargers in San Diego.

John Pasha, vice president of Pasha Automotive Services, which receives and transports cars from the 24th Street terminal, told a crowd gathered at the San Diego Hall of Champions in October that building the deck over the terminal would doom the maritime shipping use, jeopardizing about 20,000 jobs. Gallagher and Chase, however, say the terminal can accommodate both uses, with the maritime industry operating on the ground floor underneath the deck.

In August, the San Diego Institute for Policy Research (SDIPR), which is backed by former mayoral candidate Steve Francis, weighed in with an analysis of Proposition B in support of Pasha’s view that the deck would have a “detrimental impact” on maritime trade. But the SDIPR report treats the 10th Avenue terminal and the 24th Street terminal in National City as one entity; Gallagher argues that the 24th Street facility should not be included in performance evaluations since Proposition B concerned only the underperforming 10th Avenue terminal.

In addition to the dispute over 10th Avenue’s performance, opponents of Proposition B charged that the Gallagher-Chase initiative amounted to a “land grab” of public property.

“It’s an end run around the land-use process at the Port,” says Port Commissioner Laurie Black. “What I want to do is weigh the revenue in balance with the quality-of-life kinds of things. Looking at 10th Avenue just as a piece of property doesn’t take into account this entire waterfront piece. I’m not into piecemeal planning, and I do not believe in 100 years that 10th Avenue will ever have a deck.”

“THE ARGUMENT AGAINST ‘ballot box planning’ is disingenuous,” Shea fires back, “as the Port Authority was created by initiative in 1962, and section 33 of the act preserves the initiative process in the event taxpayers don’t like what the Port does.”

He says he is not so much concerned with the proposition itself, but that it serves to illustrate the larger issue of how decisions are made in San Diego.

“My interest is not to advocate for Proposition B but to look at issues with an eye toward evaluating them financially as opposed to turning them into 10-second sound bites,” Shea says. “Decisions get made in San Diego on the basis of misinformation — why not make decisions on the basis of facts, and let the chips fall where they may?”

As a former mayoral candidate, president of the Bank of Commerce and San Diego Port Commissioner, Peter Q. Davis has a unique vantage point from which to view the tussle over the 10th Avenue terminal.

“In 2004, when I got to the Port, and the Chargers issue got controversial, I suggested we should look at 10th Avenue, which is about the same size as Qualcomm, and see if mixed use was possible, and it was just the same kind of response that Gallagher is getting,” Davis says. “[Port Commissioner Stephen] Cushman set up a meeting in which everybody was against it. This was not an objective discussion; the labor people were more emotional than logical, and it was voted down 6 to 1.”

Shea says he believes the conversation over the 10th Avenue terminal will continue, and Davis agrees.

“I’m delighted Gallagher took it as far as he did, because it sends a strong message to the Port that this isn’t just their football that they can take home when they don’t like the rules,” says Davis. “If they don’t start working with the public, if they don’t start using legitimate figures and facts to discuss the continued use of 10th Avenue as a cargo terminal with people who want a mixed use, they’re going to have another initiative — and this one is going to be a lot less objectionable. And this one is going to pass.” 

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