Navy Broadway Complex to house new Navy offices

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published July 19, 2006 at 9:00 PM PDT

This story was published more than 18 years ago.

A downtown planning group met last night to hear details of the Navy Broadway Complex redevelopment. It was one of three public hearings left before the city gives its OK to the billion dollar Bay fro

A downtown planning group met last night to hear details of the Navy Broadway Complex redevelopment. It was one of three public hearings left before the city gives its OK to the billion dollar Bay front project. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

Few financial details have been revealed so far about the ambitious 15 acre redevelopment project on the Embarcadero, but a spokesman for Doug Manchester, the developer, volunteered an estimate of between $1.2 and $1.3 billion. The master plan calls for a new Navy office building to be built first.

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When asked why the Navy doesn't build an office at its 32nd St naval base rather than on prime downtown property, Captain Mike Allen said the navy will soon send more ships to the base.

Allen: "We're going to have 45 new hulls in Navy base San Diego, so the operational waterfront is dramatically encumbered with this new class of ships, so to encumber it further with administrative would really hurt us operationally in our readiness."

Much of the open green space in the plan surrounds the new navy office block, part of the security system to keep vehicles away from the building. 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.