Solana Beach Steps in Right Direction

SAN DIEGO — Almost despite itself, Solana Beach is on the verge of a graceful growth spurt.

Incorporated in 1986, this city of 15,000 has been slow to adopt detailed planning and design guidelines for the precious coastal strip along Highway 101. Even so, two major new developments are taking positive directions.

On the western side of 101 this week, Solana Beach developer Robert Irish broke ground on the $11-million, 54,000-square-foot Beachwalk shopping center between Via de la Valle and Lomas Santa Fe Drive, with completion expected next spring. Cardiff architect Tom McCabe, who contributed to the design of Del Mar Plaza shopping center, has incorporated similar kinds of intimacy and lively pedestrian circulation into Beachwalk’s design.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the highway, planners see the intersection of 101 and Lomas Santa Fe Drive a few blocks to the north of Beachwalk as the pedestrian-oriented center of town, including a public plaza at the foot of Lomas Santa Fe.

At the northeastern corner of this intersection, on the site of a former lumber yard, the North County Transit District and a development partnership led by Tom Hollander of Los Angeles are teaming on a $26-million, mixed-use project including housing, shops, movie theaters, and a train and bus station.

Now in an embryonic stage of design in the office of San Diego architect Rob Quigley, the transit center is evolving into a lively mix of forms and functions, driven by several community workshops at which local residents explained the types of uses they would like to see: They expressed their desire for something more than the usual peach stucco commercial strip fronted by parking.

City planners and consultants adopted a redevelopment plan for the Highway 101 strip last year, and have been preparing planning and design guidelines for the area since 1989--by next fall, a new Specific Plan should be in place to spell out land uses, transportation plans, and urban design and architectural guidelines for the corridor, while a Beach Park Master Plan guides the creation of a public plaza at the foot of Lomas Santa Fe Drive, west of 101, where the road meets the ocean.

The City Council began reviewing recommendations from its planning consultants, led by the Pasadena-based company Cotton Beland, last month.

And while the two new developments have proceeded without these guidelines in place, city planners are pleased with both projects, as well they should be. Both mark a significant step up from the cheap-looking, speculative projects that have plagued other areas in San Diego County, and both have much to offer in the way of imagination, lively experiences and plain old common-sense planning.

“We found that Solana Beach is doing a ‘pedestrian pocket’ without even realizing it,” said Glen Dake of Andrew Spurlock Martin Poirier Landscape Architects, one of the city’s urban design and planning consultants. Pedestrian pocket is a term coined by planners to describe a cluster of housing, shops and offices within walking distance of a transit system. It is seen as a more efficient way of developing towns in the 1990s.

“Solana Beach will have a transit center next to 100,000 square feet of pedestrian-oriented mixed-use development at Lomas Santa Fe Drive and 101, with office and residential uses on the second and third floors, all organized on a major east-west spine (Lomas Santa Fe) connecting the ocean and Interstate 5,” Dake explained.

Added Steve Apple, the city’s planning director: “A planner would always like to plan well in advance, but we haven’t had many big projects since we incorporated. The 101 Specific Plan we’re working on is a blueprint for what the community would like to see. These projects have met community, council and staff expectations.”

McCabe’s Beachwalk will use a traditional palette of stucco walls, Craftsman wood detailing and asphalt shingle roofs, combined with an eye for intimate detail. The architect has also embedded a layer of hidden meanings, but he didn’t detail them, preferring to leave them for the enjoyment of those who take the time to figure them out.

Beachwalk’s most significant obstacle was integrating auto and pedestrian circulation. Acknowledging that the car is the dominant mode of transportation along 101, McCabe pushed the bulk of the project away from the street, with parking out front. A larger parking structure is tucked behind the project, fronting Sierra Avenue. Two separate restaurant buildings will anchor the front corners of the 3-acre site, while the main complex, set back from the street, curves around a strip of parking and an open plaza.

Pedestrians will also have access from 101, though not as readily as cars. And within the project, they will walk a series of ramps, stairs and balconies that provide a variety of perspectives of buildings and people, in the spirit of Del Mar Plaza.

The one major drawback of Beachwalk, indeed for this whole stretch of 101, is that sidewalks along the roadway are too narrow and interrupted often by driveways. Hopefully, the new Specific Plan will put pedestrians on a more equal footing with cars, calling for broader sidewalks with street trees, landscaping and places to sit.

Making various transit modes work together is also a challenge Quigley faces designing the transit center, where cars, pedestrians, trains and buses will interconnect.

Compared with McCabe’s design, Quigley’s is less traditional, a witty, honest blend of practical materials such as concrete, wood and steel, combined with a sort of industrial chic aesthetic. Quigley has often looked to humble sources for inspiration. In Solana Beach, a city which doesn’t have a strong urban identity, agricultural sheds and the vaulted roofs of nearby Quonset-type buildings provided his points of departure.

“I grew up in the beach towns,” Quigley said. “As a surfer and beach-oriented person, I always had an affinity for the beach communities. Solana Beach has always been special. It has a ruralness, a romantic quality.”

The 82,000-square-foot transit center development would stretch from Lomas Santa Fe north for 1,800 feet, between the railroad tracks on the west and Cedros Avenue on the east.

At its southern end, the project would be anchored by a retail complex under a light roof, possibly of some kind of fabric. Strung out to the north would be the depot, more retail, a five-plex cinema, artists’ lofts, low-cost seniors’ housing, a public park and, at the northern end, 32 town homes arranged around open, landscaped courtyards.

The project would include 900 parking spaces, many concealed underground so the tallest structures would match the scale of the existing commercial strip to the south.

At this point, Quigley’s design looks promising. He has broken the long, narrow complex into compact blocks that will give it an intimate scale, and the architecture puts a contemporary spin on local character.

Including housing as part of a transit center is unprecedented in San Diego County, the kind of sensible planning that could help reduce auto dependency in the years ahead.

The project’s major drawback is an elevated concrete bridge residents have requested to give access to the project from 101, over the railroad tracks. This would be an unfortunate visual obstruction, but locals feel it is needed to cut the traffic load on Cedros. Architects and planners disagree, so maybe their side will prevail.

North County Transit District announced last week that it was having trouble negotiating with Santa Fe Railway for the rights to add commuter trains connecting North County and downtown San Diego through coastal stations, including the one in Solana Beach. But the hitch isn’t slowing this project, according to Hollander. He hopes for City Council approval May 20, and plans to break ground next year, assuming he and his partners can successfully finance their $18-million share of the $26-million public/private project.