Controversy growing over Navy's Broadway Complex

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published March 15, 2006 at 9:00 PM PST

This story was published more than 18 years ago.

A coalition of citizen groups is growing, in opposition to the way the Navy's Broadway Complex on the Bay will be redeveloped. But city business leaders say opposing the plan jeopardizes the whole Nor

A coalition of citizen groups is growing, in opposition to the way the Navy's Broadway Complex on the Bay will be redeveloped. But city business leaders say opposing the plan jeopardizes the whole North Embarcadero visionary Plan. KPBS reporter Alison ST John has more.

It's a breezy site between San Diego Bay and downtown, and the Navy owns it. Diann Cooms of the newly formed Broadway Complex Coalition says plans have been carried out in secret, and even if the public gets a say once the developer is picked later this month it's too late to change the blueprint

Cooms: "When they are committed to building 3.25 million square feet no matter how you design it, the options are still bad."

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Julie Meyer Wright, head of San Diego's Economic Development Corporation, says if the navy's plans are delayed, the Federal government will take over, under the Base Closure process.

Wright: "And then the navy, the city and the public loose control of what happens it could stay acres old buildings for years to come."

The site is part of the city's ambitious North Embarcadero Project dubbed "San Diego's front porch" Alison St John, KPBS News.

Alison St John

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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.