Name: In bid for Tailgate Park, Padres beat Brookfield with $1.4B, office-focused proposal
Brand: sandiegouniontribune.com
SKU: sandiegouniontribune-com-117
Availability: OnlineOnly

critic

In bid for Tailgate Park, Padres beat Brookfield with $1.4B, office-focused proposal

preview

Copyright © 2022, The San Diego Union-Tribune | | AdvertisementAdvertisement The San Diego Padres have won the opportunity to turn four city blocks, currently used as a Petco Park parking lot, into an urban square where technology workers commingle with artisans and baseball fans.Wednesday, city officials announced that the Padres and its development partners, Tishman Speyer and Ascendant Capital Partners, were picked over challenger Brookfield Properties to redevelop the 5.25-acre plot of land known as Tailgate Park. The selection that started in December and paves the way for the city to offload the long-held asset as is required by the state.The winning group’s $1.4 billion project proposal seeks to refashion the asphalt area bounded by 12th and Imperial avenues, and K and 14th streets into a commercial office hub now being referred to as East Village Quarter.The campus, which is expected to be seeded with brand-name tech and biotech firms, will include 1.35 million square feet of office space and be accented by 612 market-rate and subsidized apartments, 50,000 square feet of shops, 1,600 parking spaces and 236,000 square feet of open space for public gatherings.AdvertisementA best-case scenario would see the Padres secure the necessary governmental approvals next year and break ground in 2023. “The construction of Petco Park has been truly transformative and catalytic for the revitalization of downtown. What we see here for the potential of Tailgate (Park) is a furtherance of that revitalization,” Padres President Erik Greupner said in an interview with the Union-Tribune.The idea, he said, is to establish, “an iconic urban district that will create jobs and housing ... while elevating the game-day experience for our fans and other San Diegans who want to come down and attend events at the ballpark.”A city-owned asset since the formation of downtown’s ballpark district, Tailgate Park is governed by a complex set of state regulations. The lot was transferred to the city after San Diego’s former redevelopment agency was dissolved in 2012. The lot has since been on a California Department of Finance list of properties that must be divested. How it will occur remains to be determined, although the city believes a sale, and not a ground lease, will maximize financial benefits.The best matched the city’s desire for a catalytic project with ample public space, said Erik Caldwell, deputy chief operating officer for the city’s Smart and Sustainable Communities Department. Rival included double the number of residential units alongside a sizable mix of office and retail, 1.1 acres of public space and fewer parking spaces. “The big distinguishing factors were around the project concepts themselves and community feedback,” Caldwell said. “The Padres did a slightly better job of answering the call of what the community was looking for.” A city selection committee, comprised of staff and advised by consultants, graded the dueling plans. The team included Caldwell, interim deputy Chief Operating Officer Kristina Peralta, director of finance Matt Vespi and special projects director Angela Wells. Real estate brokerage JLL Capital Markets served as an adviser.The Padres received 181 points out of a possible 200 points, while Brookfield scored 173 points. The former edged out the latter, in part, because of a higher mark in the, “existing lease terms category,” meaning the Padres’ long-term parking agreement with the city equated to a 4-point advantage.As for community input, a virtual open house, held online at the end of August, resulted in 1,156 completed questionnaires. Participants’ highest priorities were open space, retail and parking, Caldwell said. Specifically, 64 percent of participants identified publicly accessible open space and community amenities as features that would, “best support the creation of an innovative and iconic downtown development,” according to a summary of results shared with the Union-Tribune. Conversely, 31 percent identified apartment housing as a sought-after feature and just 11 percent voted for office space as an important project component.One of the Padres proposal’s major selling points was the public amenities, Caldwell said. The team’s plan calls for urban parks, a central plaza and a recreation field atop the parking garage.“As you pass into the interior of the development, we’ve envisioned grand public spaces there that can serve as gathering space for the community,” said Greupner, the Padres president. The space, he added, would be used for live music, events and include a large video board for outdoor viewing of Padres broadcasts.And although community members showed the least interest in office space, Greupner is most excited about the prospect of engineering a tech and biotech cluster in the city’s urban core. It’s been an elusive dream of downtown developers for years, but the baseball executive is eying his partners’ client list for tenant potential. For instance, Tishman Speyer has a relationship with Pfizer, the anchor tenant of its Spiral skyscraper in New York.Next, the city’s evaluation committee will take the project recommendation to City Council, where council members will vote on whether to approve an exclusive negotiating agreement with the Padres group, officially known as Tailgate Development LLC. If approved, the parties will then have around six months to hammer out the terms of a sale or ground lease. The final contract will require City Council approval. Get U-T Business in your inbox on Mondays Get ready for your week with the week’s top business stories from San Diego and California, in your inbox Monday mornings. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the San Diego Union-Tribune. Show Comments Advertisement Advertisement AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement

Copyright © 2022, The San Diego Union-Tribune | | AdvertisementAdvertisement The San Diego Padres have won the opportunity to turn four city blocks, currently used as a Petco Park parking lot, into an urban square where technology workers commingle with artisans and baseball fans.Wednesday, city officials announced that the Padres and its development partners, Tishman Speyer and Ascendant Capital Partners, were picked over challenger Brookfield Properties to redevelop the 5.25-acre plot of land known as Tailgate Park. The selection that started in December and paves the way for the city to...

public

Jennifer Van Grove

The San Diego Union-Tribune, the region's leading news source since 1868. Follow our journalists, too: http://j.mp/UTstaff

In bid for Tailgate Park, Padres beat Brookfield with $1.4B, office-focused proposal

No article scores yet.

CRITIC REVIEWS

PUBLIC REVIEWS