Politics

Urban Designer Upbeat About San Diego's Waterfront

By Alison St John / Reporter

Published February 15, 2010 at 1:53 PM PST

This story was published more than 14 years ago.

The City of San Diego, the Port and the California Coastal Commission have a few weeks to negotiate a compromise on the first phase of the North Embarcadero Visionary Plan.

The mayor and many city leaders are impatient to break ground on the first phase of a long-planned project to beautify the bay front, near the Star of India.

But the Coastal Commission says it will not grant a permit until planners reach agreement with Coastal Commission Staff on the design of public space at the foot of Broadway.

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An area originally designated as a public park has become a paved plaza in front of a new cruise ship terminal.

Mark Johnson, lead designer on the project, says he’s worked on other world class waterfronts, and San Diego's has all the elements for success.

“The entire 1.3 miles of the North Embarcadero plan actually includes a huge amount of public open space," Johnson said, "including passive green spaces, including active space, promenades, places to eat and any number of things that are typical of the most successful public waterfronts around the world.”

Johnson says trends in waterfront design have changed over the past decade and passive public parks are no longer considered as desirable as spaces that generate a lot of activity. He says a cruise ship terminal on the Broadway Pier is no bad thing, as it add dynamic activity to the area.

Johnson also argues that public open space in the adjoining Lane Field and Navy Broadway Complex parcels will add up to significant public space along the whole water front.

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The Coastal Commission will reconsider the North Embarcadero Visionary Plan in mid-April.

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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.