Round-the-bay roundup
Long celebrated as one of the world’s greatest ports, the San Diego Bay is fast evolving to become one of the most beautiful. Here’s how to enjoy the ever-changing waterfront!
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ot gonna lie: you didn’t used to wanna swim in the San Diego Bay. Back in the day, our vast urban centerpiece’s militaryindustrial shores and murky waters were not something a travel agent would have mentioned among our area’s attractions. But between cleanup efforts started in the 1960s and a trove of more recent public improvement projects, year by year the bay’s waterfront has been transforming into a destination in its own right.
Mostly under the umbrella of the San Diego Unified Port District (or more familiarly, the Port), a vast patchwork of visions, plans, projects, and publicprivate partnerships have spawned a slow-moving but inevitable wave of improvements including parks, greenways, bike routes, resorts, and other attractions.
While many future projects continue to evolve during planning stages, let’s take a quick trip around the bay for highlights of what you can expect to find now and in the near future.
The Embarcadero Where downtown San Diego dips its toes in the bay, The Embarcadero runs about two miles along the water from Little Italy to Petco Park, and is home to many of the most visible improvement projects. In 2014, Waterfront Park transformed the area around the iconic County Administration Building from a hot paved wasteland into a cool waterside oasis, and it’s on the brink of another transformation. The county’s Parks and Recreation department is moving forward with concepts to add recreational facilities for basketball,
homes. This is just an early phase of the city’s Bayfront Master Plan, including the projected billion-dollar Gaylord Pacific Resort and Convention Center (slated to break ground this year), additional marina services and hospitality, and open space improvements. portofsandiego.org/projects/chula-vista-bayfront
baseball, and even a dog park. The county hopes to break ground next year and possibly reopen by summer. sdparks.org Seaport Village, which has charmed visitors since 1980, will undergo a major personality change sometime this decade, according to the ambitious vision of Seaport San Diego. Thematically focused on our city’s relationship with the bay, the sprawling complex promises an aquarium, observation tower, new lodging options from hostels to 5-star hotels, new berths for visiting vessels (including mega-yachts), marine education facilities, and of course shopping. Don’t give up on Seaport Village just yet — get out there and enjoy its restaurants, shops, and rustic setting while you can, because groundbreaking may be as early as 2024. seaportsandiegoca.com Remember Summer Pops? The San Diego Symphony’s bayside venue has gotten a world-class upgrade at its South Embarcadero Park home. If you haven’t noticed it yet, look to the northeast next time you’re driving over the bridge and spot The Shell, San Diego’s addition to the world’s great outdoor venues. Nestled between majestic views of downtown and the bay, the nature-inspired structure shelters all the performance amenities of an indoor space, and hides a state-of-the-art audio system designed to offer the same high-quality surround sound experience to the entire audience of 3,500 – 10,000 patrons. Construction is complete, and the Symphony is actively working on ways to safely welcome the public for top-notch live music starting as soon as this summer. sandiegosymphony.org
South Bay The Port is working with National City on some proposals for Pepper Park and other areas around the marina, but the big South Bay news is Chula Vista’s bayfront development. The Sun Outdoors San Diego Bay RV Resort has opened to host vacationers with luxury RV amenities and tiny vacation rental
Additionally, a new segment of the Bayshore Bikeway just opened, moving the bicycle thoroughfare from city streets to a beautiful new promenade that runs from E Street to Bayside Park. If you’re not familiar, the Bayshore Bikeway is a 24-mile route that runs around the entire San Diego Bay. Flat, entirely paved, much of it car-free, connected by stretches of shared roadway and one ferry ride between Coronado and downtown, the circuit is one of the best ways to really get to know the bay. sandiego. org/articles/biking/bike-routebayshore-bikeway.aspx The Port is also continuing the longhaul process of repairing much of the environmental damage done to the bay over many decades of use. One project under development will create a wetland mitigation zone out of an artificial salt flat known as Pond 20, which served as an industrial salt extraction facility for over 90 years. The rewilding of this land would bring many benefits, not the least of which would be an even cleaner bay and an additional attraction to birds and other salt marsh wildlife. portofsandiego.org/projects/ wetland-mitigation-bank-pond-20
What’s Next? As our region itself continues to evolve, the Port and its member communities will continue to evaluate the uses of our available waterfront. To keep up with their plans and learn about ways to participate as a stakeholder, follow the Port for announcements. You can be part of making San Diego Bay a centerpiece we can be proud of for generations to come. portofsandiego.org/projects
Whether you’re most at home on the bay or in the mountains,
your REALTOR® is a ready resource to help you find and improve your natural habitat.
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