The San Diego Unified Port District is proposing to demolish the now-closed Anthony’s Fish Grotto building that has stood on the downtown waterfront for more than 50 years.

The board delayed action Tuesday until its May 16 meeting as it continues to negotiate with the California Coastal Commission over Anthony’s replacement, the Brigantine restaurant group’s Portside Pier.

The demolition cost, estimated at up to $1.7 million, would be covered by Anthony’s, which remains in business in La Mesa but also is thinking of opening a new restaurant downtown, according to the company’s president, Anthony Ghio, whose grandmother founded the popular eatery in 1946.

Portside Pier has been redesigned with reduce signage and lighting and increased public access. (Tucker Sadler Architects)


The port also delayed action on a revised design of Brigantine’s $13 million three-restaurant project.

Anthony’s opened the present building at 1360 N. Harbor Drive in 1964 and its Star of the Sea white-tablecloth restaurant was a prime place for fancy dates and family celebrations.

But in recent years, business shifted to other venues and Anthony’s closed the formal dining room while keeping the more informal Fish Grotto restaurant and outdoor Fishette fast-food service.

The port put the property out for bid hoping for a “world-class” replacement and Anthony’s, in partnership with another developer, lost out to locally based Brigantine last year. The last meals were served Jan. 31 to overflow crowds and the port took over the building March 15.


The port erected a fence around the building but now expresses concerns over security and vandalism because of the unexpected delays in building Portside Pier. The staff says it could take from six months to two years before the new project could get under way.

“The district has longer-term public safety and health concerns about leaving the vacated building ‘as-is,’ including the potential creation of an attractive nuisance, possible trespassing and criminal activity at the site and the structure’s disrepair,” said Wileen C. Manaois, a principal in the port’s development services department, in the staff report.

Melody Lasiter, a coastal commission program analyst, said her agency likely has no objection to the demolition but had not yet analyzed the port staff report that came out Friday.

Brigantine proposes to build a two-story, 34,069-square-foot replacement that would include Brigantine on the Bay, Miguelo’s Cocina and Ketch Grill & Taps, plus a gelato and coffee bar. Also new would be a 3,711-square-foot upper deck and enlarged dock-and-dine facility accommodating up to 12 boats.


But last month the coastal commission asserted its right to review the project, even though the port continues to argue that state law does not allow appeals of restaurant projects to the commission. Two commissioners appealed the project but next month’s expected hearing in San Diego has been postponed.

Coastal staff raised a number of design issues, most of which have been settled, the port said. They include less lighting and signage, more public access to the upper deck, including a newly added public walkway, clearer parking arrangements and general boating access to the dock-and-dine facility even for those sailors not dining at Portside Pier.

Portside Pier would include a second floor public viewing deck and walkway (Tucker Sadler Architects)

But three issues remain unresolved and it is those that port staff hope to iron out in coming weeks, a district spokeswoman said.


They include the continued dispute over coastal commission authority over restaurants, the amount of fill for new pilings and amount of water surface that will be shaded by the new development.

Brigantine had hoped to be open in the summer of 2018 but that target date now may be in jeopardy. The company also needs permits from federal and state agencies to build over San Diego Bay.

Lasiter said the commission staff believe Portside Pier should occupy no bigger a platform than Anthony’s 23,285 square feet; the Brigantine proposes a 24,960-square-foot platform, a 7.2 percent increase. She said the larger platform was justified by a public walkway on the first level. But now that the walkway has been moved upstairs, the staff wants the lower level to occupy no more area than the Anthony’s building.

“That would make a smaller restaurant and they would also have to redesign the restaurant,” she said.


An enlarged dock-and-dine facility would accommodate up to 12 boats. (Tucker Sadler Architects)

Lasiter said the agency also does not want the fill area on the bay bottom where the new pilings will go to be any bigger than Anthony’s, even though there will be 13 fewer but bigger pilings than currently exist.

“The coastal act is pretty clear — only certain uses are allowed to result in (filling) of coastal waters and a restaurant is not one of them,” she said.

Taken together, the larger building platform and dock-and-dine facility would cover 28,330 square feet of water area, up 18.8 percent from the present 23,850 square feet.


But the biggest issue continues to be the commission’s power to review restaurants. Port lawyers believe state law does not empower such review while the state lawyers say it does.

“That has always been our view,” Lasiter said.

She said the commission staff encouraged the port to delay Tuesday’s action so these final issues could be resolved. The commission also delayed the May appellate hearing on Portside Pier’s original coastal development permit.

“When we appealed the project, we had talked to the port and decided if the port could modify its (permit) in order to be in line with the coastal act, maybe we would drop the appeal,” Lasiter said.


The port could fight the commission in court but that could take years to resolve and delay and perhaps kill Portside Pier and the money it was going to generate for the port in lease revenues — not to mention, an updated place for the public to dine on the bayfront.

Business


roger.showley@sduniontribune.com; (619) 293-1286; Twitter: @rogershowley