One Paseo

Carmel Valley wants a village, but is only being offered a mixed-use urban mall. The General Plan says we're supposed to be a "Community Village", and Kilroy tells us that One Paseo is in line with this, but examples seem to show otherwise. Examples of Community Villages include the Uptown District in Hillcrest, or the downtowns of La Mesa, Oceanside, La Jolla and Encinitas.

So what do these look like? Well, you're probably familiar with La Mesa, La Jolla, Oceanside or Encinitas, but what about the Uptown District? The Uptown District in Hillcrest is pictured at the start of this posting, pretty great, huh?! That's exactly what I want in Carmel Valley, it looks like a village! And the EPA, on their own website (visit the site), touts the Uptown District as a successful, high-density development:

...The project, a successful 14-acre mixed-use, high-density development in the city's Hillcrest neighborhood, ... combines a mix of uses, including 318 homes, 145,000 square feet of commercial and retail space, and a 3,000-square-foot community center. The residential density is over 20 units per acre, far more than the city average of less than 3 units per acre...

This village has everything we want and meets all the requirements of Smart Growth!

So, why do we need the density of One Paseo if this is also a great example of smart growth? I believe we should demand a village that looks more like these other example areas (the Uptown District, or the downtowns of La Jolla, Oceanside, Encinitas or La Mesa.) This would be more appropriate to Carmel Valley.

Again, my opinion. What do you think?

If you look at what Kilroy has shown to the community to garner support for One Paseo, I believe it significantly misrepresents the true nature of the complete project. Sure, building sizes are called out in overhead views, and there is an occasional rendering that includes a large tower in the distance, but the majority of the imagery provided to the community consists of marketing views of low-rise buildings and idealized street scenes. This article outlines my concerns.

Why does it matter if Kilroy has misrepresented the project to the community? Because the Community Plan Amendment Process requires significant support from the community to justify approval of the amendment. If Kilroy is really misrepresenting the project to the community, shouldn't support for One Paseo be considered suspect? After all, support for One Paseo should be based on a realistic representation of the entire project.

Here's a typical view that Kilroy shows of the project:

While the Kilroy view may be technically correct for this part of the central plaza, the vast majority of the project doesn't look anything like it. From Kilroy's picture, we get the feeling of a two-story development with an occasional tower in the distance. In reality, this central block has the only two story buildings in the development, yet most of the pictures show views of this central core, leaving out the residential blocks and the residential tower.

Here's a view of what the residential blocks might actually look like, taken of the La Jolla Crossroads development near UTC:

The picture of La Jolla Crossroads is more like what Del Mar Heights Road will look like with the completion of One Paseo. The picture shows a 5 story residential block, similar to the 4, 5 and 6 story buildings that will line Del Mar Heights Road.

Even in the DEIR, Kilroy has managed to provide views that minimize the scale of the project. The one rendering that might have realistically shown the impact of the 10 story residential tower, taken from the corner of Del Mar Heights Road and High Bluff Drive, conveniently crops out the 10 story tower!

The reality of One Paseo is acres of tall residential blocks that loom over the adjacent streets and block the views of nearby residents. The reality is a 10 story residential tower at the highest point on the property, where the top of the tower is the highest point in the development. The reality is a development that is totally out of scale with the surrounding community.

These articles are my opinion. If there are factual errors, let me know and I'll correct them!

Searching for the Main Street Ambassadors? Come to our site to learn more about One Paseo and it's impact to the Carmel Valley Community in San Diego!

What is this new group, anyway? It appears they have some professional resources, having created a website with beautiful graphics and sent out mailers to the community with questionnaires and pre-paid return postage. Phew, I wish I had money to do that marketing! A local website says the Main Street Ambassadors is "composed of local residents, businesses, service clubs and other individuals" who support the project. Who do you suppose these mysterious "other individuals" are? They're not residents, businesses or service clubs...

While groups like this provide us with quick, feel-good blurbs extracted from Kilroy's marketing materials ("1700 new jobs!", "traffic improvement!", "walkable design!", etc.), they ignore the reality of the project and the true impact on the community. Just think about the actual impact of One Paseo:

• Sure, new jobs, but that brings 25,000 to 30,000 new cars onto our local streets! (Kilroy says 20,000 to 25,000) The traffic impact is so significant that Kilroy will be required to make improvements miles away, such as a traffic signal near Carmel Del Mar school and street widening on Via de la Valle!
• The DEIR only mentions signal timing in an appendix, I don't see it as a mitigation measure. If the traffic improvement through Signal Timing was so effective, why isn't it listed in the DEIR as a mitigation measure for all the traffic that this project will generate? If the City had evidence that this would actually help, I suspect it would be listed. Note that San Marcos, a city that has used this system, has found that there was little or no benefit when the streets were near capacity (like Del Mar Heights is already!)
• I'll admit that One Paseo has lots of parking, more than the San Diego Convention Center! Remember that this parking is all in parking structures, which are have a hard time managing lots of traffic (imagine trying to park when you're stuck behind some slowpoke trying to find a space.)
• One Paseo may be walkable inside the development, but not from the outside. Are you going to walk from your house when you visit this shopping mall? Not likely. Very few of Carmel Valley's 13,000 residences are within easy walking distance, probably only a few hundred.

The reality of One Paseo is an oversized urban mall that's not appropriate for a suburban village. Sure, new groups can form that claim this is the best thing ever, but the reality doesn't live up to the hype. How about someone proposes a smaller-scaled suburban village, something that actually fits into Carmel Valley!

These articles are my opinion. If there are factual errors, let me know and I'll correct them!

Here's a video walkthrough of a project like One Paseo:

This development is called La Jolla Crossroads, and it's down in the UTC area of San Diego. Is this the village life you'd imagined in Carmel Valley?

Shouldn't Kilroy be building a smaller Carmel Valley Main Street? We all know that Del Mar Heights Road gets totally jammed at certain times of the day, imagine it with One Paseo completed, where there will be far more cars on the road! On top of that, imagine more development at the Town Center, because they have more approved development, and the new Pacific Highlands Ranch shopping center out by CCA could add even more!

One Paseo's Main Street has very high density, similar to what you'd find in New York City. Do we want 5, 6 and 10 story buildings lining our Main Street? This is exactly what Kilroy has proposed for One Paseo! Does this sound like a suburban San Diego street to you, or something more like an inappropriate downtown or in UTC?

I would love to see something with a village atmosphere, a more small-town approach to development. The final project can still have all the same uses, just at a lower scale.

In the Carmel Valley News this week, Travel Writer Cynthia Dial recycles her old One Paseo article from the Carmel Valley Life website. The letter was wrong when it was first written, and re-writing it didn't make it any better.

There are four problems with the letter: we won't get a "village center", there is no "iconic structure", traffic issues haven't been addressed, and there won't be that many new good jobs. For the village center, Dial notes that Carmel Valley is missing it's "heart", and I agree. However, she likely doesn't realize how massive this development is, and how the mainstreet will be more like a downtown center than a village. That is, this project would be appropriate downtown or in UTC, but not in our suburban neighborhood. It just doesn't fit here. Opponents are not against the idea of a center, but we want something scaled to the area, a proper village main street.

The second issue is the idea that, even though we hate it now, this project could become an iconic development, loved by all. Given that Kilroy hasn't released architectural details, this is a stretch. What we have seen has been uninspired: rectangular office towers, dense blocks of residential units, etc. The current proposal could never be considered iconic, and I don't see any effort from the developer to make things better.

The third issue is traffic, and how the developer has "heard our concerns and addressed all the problems." Oh, please! You're going to just trust the developer here? I suppose you think they know what's good for us and that somehow they'll make everything better? Not going to happen. The developer will try to maximize their development and profit, and hope we don't notice until it's too late. DO NOT trust the developer when there's big money at stake, they're not "members of the community", they're out to make a buck.

The final issue is jobs. Everyone always brings up how many jobs this project will create! Jobs, jobs, jobs. So many jobs! Well, the reality is very different from the marketing story. Remember, if this project does NOT get built, Kilroy will still build all the same office buildings -- One Paseo is really about the additional retail, hotel and residential buildings. That is, the office buildings will create a couple of thousand jobs, and these will happen with or without the One Paseo mainstreet project. The only permanent jobs that are created by the One Paseo project are about 400 retail and hotel jobs. So, those "good jobs" you're talking about are really minimum wage retail jobs, waiters, hotel maids, and the like. Sure, there will be a few restaurant and hotel managers, but the majority of the jobs created will not be the jobs you're thinking of.

The supporters of One Paseo keep trying to sell the project through marketing, deception and beautiful imagery that fades under scrutiny. We need to keep pushing the developer to show us the real development, to show us the real traffic impacts, to show us the truth. After all, if this is such a great project, why are they hiding it?

These articles are my opinion. If there are factual errors, let me know and I'll correct them!

A local business owner writes a letter about how "One Paseo would be bad for business". Read it at the Carmel Valley News.

It's funny how Kilroy almost seems sad that we don't like it's huge One Paseo project in Carmel Valley, almost like we've hurt their feelings. I mean, they've worked so hard to make a "perfect project", a "wonderful, mixed-use development" that's "concerned about the environment" and "sustainable".

The problem is that their perspective is different from ours, they're thinking about how to make an active street that's always full of people, like Downtown Disney. When you think like this, you worry about what's going on inside the project: Are there enough shops and restaurants? Is the movie theater well located? Can the people from the office buildings easily get to lunch? And, they've solved all of these problems! There will be tons of people, and the interior of the project will be constantly busy with residents, shoppers and moviegoers, office workers and hotel guests. The many restaurants and shops will attract people from the local community and residents from miles around. This will be the "it" place in North County, and a very successful project.

And, on the environmental and sustainability side, well, they're not impacting any wildlife or building in wetlands, so it's much better than building out in the open space! I mean, look at how much work they did to add parks and recreation areas to their project, and to create a connected community where offices, retail and residential were all adjacent to each other! How could you be more sustainable than that?

Ugh.

The thing is, Kilroy didn't do anything to create the balanced community or the location that's so well connected, that's all part of the original Carmel Valley Community Plan. Someone long ago thought this all out and tried to create a balanced community with office, retail and residential all working together. There are no new parks in the development, other than a small central square that's about the size of the central square at UTC. That's it, just a small chunk of concrete that will be likely contain a few trees, a fountain and a small patch of grass.

There are no recreational opportunities in this development, unless you count the sidewalk around the outside, which could make a nice jogging track. The 1200 to 1500 residents will have to use the neighborhood parks and facilities, and drive to remote schools. Did you know that our parks are already overloaded, and the local Carmel Valley Recreation Council has to limit turn away sports groups because there are no available fields? Did you know that the Carmel Valley Middle School is so overloaded that they're thinking of adding class times before or after school? Did you know the Del Mar Elementary Schools are so crowded that kids can't go to their neighborhood school, and have to instead drive to an alternate location?

Back to my point about different perspectives. Kilroy is looking at the inside of One Paseo to find what is good. They've created a great environment inside the walls for the residents, for the office workers and for the shoppers. They're worried about their project, they want to make sure it's a good one. On the inside. Carmel Valley Residents, on the other hand, are concerned about the community environment: How does the development look from the outside? How does it fit with existing buildings? How does the traffic flow? How are community facilities impacted?

When you look at the project from the outside, you see only problems. Massive blocks of buildings creating a canyon down Del Mar Heights Road. Significant height differences between existing buildings and the new development, with 4, 5, 6 and 10 story buildings across the street from existing 2 and 3 story structures. Traffic that appears to have no hopes of working, even with timed signals. Parks and schools already overloaded, asked to handle additional load.

I can understand that some people in the community are excited about One Paseo, it sounds great in the marketing brochures! Heck, even I was all for this project just 6 months ago! However, I have since realized how big it is, and I'm willing to show others what's being proposed. In that regard, if anyone ever wants to see a similar development to the One Paseo proposal for Carmel Valley, I'm willing to take you on a field trip down to La Jolla where they have an apartment complex of a very similar scale. It's just a 10 minute drive from Carmel Valley, down in the UTC area of San Diego. If you're interested, send me an email at ken@cvsd.com, I'll make the time to show you.

These articles are my opinion. If there are factual errors, let me know and I'll correct them!

Carmel Valley Main Street (www.CarmelValleyMainStreet.com) has a story on One Paseo, about how big it REALLY is and how it compares to the La Jolla Crossroads development. See One Paseo is bigger than you Think. This covers a local San Diego development of comprable size, something you can visit to see what the Kilroy project might be like.

The Carmel Valley News has some letters: the first, about the Project Putting Carmel Valley's Best Qualities at Risk. And, it really is at risk. This could turn our San Diego neighborhood into a Los Angeles nightmare. It's funny how people can write letters that say things like, "this would be good for our community", or, "Kilroy has been responsible." They're clearly not looking at the same project that I see. So, it's time for Kilroy to present a smaller alternative to the project, something that we could actually live with.

Do you consider yourself in the Friends of One Paseo, or more in favor of a smaller Carmel Valley Main Street? We all know that Del Mar Heights Road in Carmel Valley gets totally messed up at certain times of the year, imagine it with One Paseo completed, when there will be an additional 30,000 cars on the road! On top of that, imagine more development at the Town Center, they're approved already for another 150,000 sq ft of retail (9,000 cars). And, the new Pacific Highlands Ranch shopping center, out by CCA, could add even more! Our suburban San Diego paradise just might turn into a parking lot.

One Paseo's Main Street has very high density, similar to what you'd find in New York City. Think of what a metro downtown street might look like. It's likely walkable, but the buildings are likely 4, 5 or 6 stories tall, exactly what Kilroy has proposed for One Paseo in Carmel Valley! Does this sound like a suburban San Diego street to you, or something more like an inappropriate Urban Center?

I would love to see something with a village atmosphere, a more small-town approach to development. The final project can still have all the same uses, just at a lower scale.

While One Paseo may not be a 40 story building, the development has the floor space to be one. If you count all the parking, the One Paseo project has over 3.6 Million square feet of developed space. This is enough to build a structure the size of two football fields that is 40 stories high! So, if we built a 40 story building with a 2 acre footprint, we could then have 20 acres of parkland in Carmel Valley. I'm being totally sarcastic here, but which would you rather have? A tall building with a large park, or the One Paseo solution, where lower buildings reduce the open space to almost zero? Would it help if it was a 4 acre building that was 20 stories high?

This is a street in Barcelona that, while more scenic than One Paseo will ever be, gives a comparison as to how tall the buildings might be on Main Street in Carmel Valley. Actually, many of the One Paseo buildings will be one floor taller. I can imagine something like this downtown, but it really doesn't look like a suburban village street to me.

The Atlantic Times Square development in LA (500 N. Atlantic Blvd, Monterey Park, CA) is a very urban, very dense development: 600,000 sq ft of space on 7 acres of land (see the Risha Engineering Page and click on the Image above for a larger view). It includes a 14 screen theater, 200,000 sq ft of retail and 210 condos. View the thing in Google Maps. One Paseo will be like 3 of these developments next to each other -- 1,800,000 sq ft of buildings on 22 acres. One Paseo is 600 condos/apartments, 270,000 sq ft retail, a hotel and 2 large office towers.