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Pop-Up Plaza In Carlsbad Village Is Part Of Revisioning Plan

By Alison St John / Reporter
Published September 15, 2014 at 3:59 AM PDT
This story was published more than 9 years ago.
The painted pop-up plaza in Carlsbad, Sept. 14 2014.
Alison St John
The painted pop-up plaza in Carlsbad, Sept. 14 2014.

Pop-Up Plaza In Carlsbad Village Is Part Of Revisioning Plan
The City of Carlsbad is experimenting this week with a pop up plaza, part of a new plan to make the downtown more pedestrian friendly.

Carlsbad's new pop up plaza is transforming a small parking lot by painting over the asphalt, and adding lighting, tables and chairs. The changes are not major, but the hope is that the new space will become a place for people to hang out together, share a cup of coffee, listen to music or watch a movie. It’s in old Carlsbad Village, near the Coaster station and a few blocks from the beach.

The pop-up plaza in Carlsbad before the parking lot was painted over, Sept. 12, 2014.
Alison St John
The pop-up plaza in Carlsbad before the parking lot was painted over, Sept. 12, 2014.

Ashley Westman is with Urban Place Consulting Group that has contracted with the city to help revitalize the village. She says for the next week there will be activities like yoga, story time and music in the plaza.

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“The point is to create more space for people because for the past 50 years we’ve been designing cities for the automobile. This is a small project in a bigger effort that’s going on right now to revision the village and the barrio, and do a new Master Plan - so it’ll definitely be a social experiment,” she said.

The City of Carlsbad is holding a series of public workshops to let residents talk about the future they would like to see in the downtown area and the historic barrio neighborhood next to it.

If enough people like what happens in the little plaza, it could become part of a bigger plan to lure commuters from their cars and build community around public transit and spaces that are fun to spend time in.

This iteration will only last a week, before reverting to its original function as a parking lot — though the asphalt will stay multi colored as a reminder.

Alison St John
Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.
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