Completion of the $16.7 million expansion of the historic Horton Plaza park has been put off for about three months.

Civic San Diego President Reese Jarrett, whose city agency is overseeing the project, this week blamed delays due to rain, construction fill issues and other causes. He estimated the opening now will be in March at the latest.

The 1.9-acre project had originally been scheduled to open in September, but the date had slipped to December in recent weeks.

The three-month delay holds a silver lining, Jarrett said. “We’re going to be able to open the retail kiosks concurrently with the opening of the park,” he said.


Three pavilions now under construction at the park at Fourth Avenue and Broadway will house Starbucks, Bruxie waffle and Sloan’s ice cream outlets in addition to the ArtsTix booth, operated by the San Diego Performing Arts League to sell discounted theater tickets, and public restrooms, Jarrett said.

The 1910 Horton Plaza fountain is being restored along with the landscaping plan that was implemented at that time and last restored in 1985. (Roger Showley)

The project, funded from leftover redevelopment funds, involves restoring the historic park and fountain to their 1910 look and adding an amphitheater and the pavilions on the site previously occupied by a Robinsons-May department store just north of the restored Balboa Theater.

Westfield Horton Plaza, which sold the department store site back to the city, will manage the park and schedule at least 200 events annually under a 25-year agreement.


Meanwhile, Westfield has been analyzing major changes to the shopping center, which opened in 1985 and played a major role in spurring downtown revitalization. Jarrett said the company has not yet shared its latest thinking.

“I understand that they are talking about planning on what their next steps will be relative to the shopping center,” he said. “It would be a fairly significant repositioning of the center.”

A Westfield spokesman said no firm plans have been set but the company hopes to announce its intentions next year. Previously, officials spoke of adding a hotel and office space, perhaps more housing units or reconstructing all or portions of the retail space to connect the center more directly with the Gaslamp Quarter.

The company is expanding Westfield UTC and selling its Westfield Carlsbad (Plaza Camino Real) to Rouse Properties.


Workers maneuver a new tree into place on the south side of the expanded Horton Plaza park, just north of the Balboa Theater. (Roger Showley)

The original half-acre Horton Plaza park was set aside by downtown founder Alonzo Horton in 1870-71. It was redesigned with its iconic fountain by San Diego architect Irving J. Gill at the time the U.S. Grant Hotel opened across Broadway in 1910. The original park and the Grant were restored and reopened in 1985.

But the park, under city control, became a homeless hangout and the grass and benches were removed to discourage loitering. Under Westfield management, city officials hope the enlarged park will finally attract a wide variety of downtown workers and residents and become a popular meeting spot as it was in its early days.

The former Central Library on E Street has been closed since 2013’s opening of the new library next to Petco Park. Civic San Diego is working on plans to rehab it as a startup incubator center. (Roger Showley)


Meanwhile, CivicSD is turning to another long-delayed downtown project, the reuse of the old Central Library at Eighth Avenue and E Street.

Closed since the new, much larger downtown library opened next to Petco Park in 2013, the three-story old library that opened in 1954 has been proposed as an incubator or accelerator space for startup companies.

Jarrett said a request for qualifications and proposals will be issued by the end of the year to see which developers and companies might be interested in leasing or buying the building. A previous request yielded only a few interested parties, he said.

“We know the challenge of actually taking and retrofitting a building for occupancy is a hurdle,” Jarrett said.


Although the library is vacant, some library materials continue to be stored in its basement, where some shelves were saved from an even earlier library on the site funded by industrialist Andrew Carnegie and opened in 1902.

roger.showley@sduniontribune.com

(619) 293-1286

Twitter: @rogershowley