In less than two years, San Diego will celebrate the centennial of the 1915 Panama-California Exposition. One hundred years ago our city s civic leaders, George Marston, Irving Gill, and Kate Sessions, hosted a great Fair in City Park, renamed Balboa Park, to commemorate the opening of the Panama Canal and put on display our tremendous city s economic potential. Those civic leaders understood what appears to have been forgotten today - that building towards cultural and social value always equates to economic value. Over the past century our values have changed, but our potential has not. Our 2015 Centennial is an opportunity to celebrate San Diego s contemporary cultural and social values. Culturally, we value our civic heritage through reusing, recycling, and reinvigorating our historic buildings and institutions. Our cultural connections with Tijuana and Mexico are valued more than ever. Socially, San Diegans cherish our yearround active and healthy lifestyle. And, we value private enterprise and economic development by actively pursuing public-private partnerships to build and maintain our local civic institutions. Reclaim Balboa 2015 is a civic dialog on what San Diego values today. The big idea is to reconnect the revitalized Plaza de Panama to its historic axis with Balboa Stadium. As identified in downtown s Community Plan as a Freeway Lid, the 2015 Centennial Bridge spans over Interstate 5 to accomplish the stated goal of reconnecting downtown with Balboa Park. This Centennial Bridge is reflective of our contemporary multi-modal society by enabling pedestrians, bicycles, and trams to reconnect with the reclaimed Balboa Stadium and revitalized Plaza de Panama. A new Streetcar Network will connect Broadway s SmartCorner to the Prado along and Park Boulevard. Reclaim Balboa 2015 could establish new cultural institutions - perhaps a Comic Book Museum and an Olympic Hall of Champions - while adding a shared sports facility and finally repurposing Inspiration Point as a vital parking area. Balboa Stadium would be remodeled to host 20,000 spectators for professional sporting events, such as soccer, track and field, high school teams, professional teams, and musical concerts and large-scale public or convention speaking events. The track and field will remain open to the public for San Diegans who value our healthy lifestyle. Finally, with the stadium sitting on a visual axis facing Tijuana, Balboa Stadium we will symbolically reconnect our cities socially and culturally. This reclamation plan has several phases with Balboa Stadium reconstruction being first in convergence with a new Streetcar Station finally linking downtown to Balboa Park. Next, a new parking garage tucked into the slope at Inspiration Point. The Centennial Bridge Freeway Lid would span the physical axis between Balboa Stadium and the Plaza de Panama and reclaim additional park space land lost in the 1950s. The new transit and parking facilities would allow both local and regional access to the existing and new cultural institutions as well as the stadium facilities.
RECLAIM BALBOA 2015 AERIAL VIEW
Balboa Stadium is San Diego s found jewel. The stadium would be reclaimed to host approximately 20,000 spectators for professional sporting events emphasizing its role as international soccer and track and field venue. Balboa Stadium will continue to host high school teams, professional teams, but the expansion will allow the stadium to also be a venue for large-scale musical concerts and convention center events. The track and field will remain open to the public for San Diegans as an expression of our collective value of our healthy and active lifestyle. Importantly, Balboa Stadium makes many visceral connections with San Diego icons. The stadium is oriented south directly towards Tijuana s iconic Bull Fighting Ring and Coronado Bridge. Imagine the 2012 champion Tijuana Xolos playing for thousands in Balboa Stadium and using sport to symbolically and physically reconnect our cities socially and culturally. The stadium reconnects the soon-to-be revitalized Plaza de Panama on its historic axis. Both the Stadium and Plaza would be within a comfortable 5 to 10-minute walk from the new transit station at Park Boulevard and Presidents Way. The Stadium would also be a short walk from the Smart Corner Transit Station only a 1/4-mile to the Southwest. And, thousands of fans would be able to access the Stadium via vast areas parking areas on Inspiration Point, as well as bicycling and transit facilities. View Looking Towards Mexico View Looking Towards Balboa Park RECLAIM BALBOA 2015 BALBOA STADIUM
Reconnecting a revitalized Plaza de Panama with its historic axis to Balboa Stadium spans history while projecting who we are today. Over past three years, San Diegans have reached consensus on the need to fix the parking issues in Balboa Park but not at the expense of our wonderful icons. And, we have policies requiring we reconnect downtown with Balboa Park. This pedestrian-oriented Centennial Bridge is reflective of our contemporary understanding that our mobility needs includes autos, bicycles, transit and walking. As done with the I-15 in City Heights, this Centennial Bridge Freeway Lid would be designed in coordination with CalTrans in order to regain additional park land lost in the 1950s and make physical connections to downtown and the heart of Balboa Park. New transit and parking facilities would allow both local and regional access to the existing and new cultural institutions and stadium facilities. A new Streetcar Network would connect Broadway s SmartCorner to the Prado, the Zoo and Mid-Cities along and Park Boulevard with a major transit station at Presidents Way, currently the parking hub of Balboa Park. RECLAIM BALBOA 2015 CENTENNIAL BRIDGE
RECLAIM BALBOA 2015 OLYMPIC STADIUM COMPLEX
Reclaiming Balboa intends to reconnect a revitalized Plaza de Panama with its historic axis to Balboa Stadium and reconnect San Diego to its history. Panama-California Exposition architect, Bertram Goodhue, wrote, for it must be remembered that Exposition Architecture differs from that of our everyday world in being essentially of the fabric of a dream - not endure but to produce a merely temporary effect. Because we willingly chose to ignore Goodhue s instructions to tear down most buildings, San Diego continues to live that dream that is Balboa Park. Originally called City Stadium, Balboa Stadium, however, sits on the edge of downtown and has a more utilitarian purpose. Balboa Stadium provides citizens a public space that engages, entertains, challenges, educates and physically interacts with them. Historically, the stadium held 23,500 people and was billed as the first true stadium on the Pacific coast and the world s largest municipal structure when it opened on May 31, 1915, and Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke there. Over the years, Charles Lindbergh flew over it, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Ty Cobb and Satchel Paige played baseball in it. Billy Graham, the Boy Scouts, and Jehovah s Witnesses gathered there. Amazingly, the San Diego Chargers won their only championship there, and The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, and Elton John played there. Today, the stadium is a shell of its former glory, standing down, waiting for San Diegans to reclaim it. A bridge is necessary to reconnect the stadium over Interstate 5 to the heart of Balboa Park. A link is necessary south, towards downtown to its redeveloping East Village and new I.D.E.A. District. The SmartCorner Trolley Station is less than a quarter of a mile away. The stadium easily accesses Interstate 5, and Highways 163 and 94. In two short years, we will be celebrating the 100-year anniversary of the Panama-California Exposition. In the spirit of Balboa Park and San Diego s great civic leader from that era, this proposal intends to ask San Diegans, What would George Marston do? RECLAIM BALBOA 2015 HISTORY