{"id":237771,"date":"2015-07-03T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-07-03T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/east-village-green\/"},"modified":"2015-07-03T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2015-07-03T07:00:00","slug":"east-village-green","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/east-village-green\/","title":{"rendered":"Pueblo verde del este"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Residents weigh in on new park<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Por Dave Schwab<\/p>\n<p>East Village residents got the opportunity to review suggested design alternatives for East Village Green Park at the second of three public workshops held June 23 at the Quartyard on Market Street.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>As Downtown\u2019s most dense neighborhood, a section of East Village is proposed to be transformed in phases into a 4.1-acre, multi-block park bounded by 13th, F, 15th, and G streets.<\/p>\n<p>East Village Green is an important component of the Downtown parks and open space plan. It is intended to provide an engaging and interactive place for residents, employees and visitors to play, gather and participate in community events.<\/p>\n<p>Residents young and old, many walking dogs, turned out at the June 23 workshop to review and vote among three offered park-design alternatives:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>An \u201cUrban Village\u201d concept concentrating public amenities on the west block and catering to the needs of dog owners along G Street.<\/li>\n<li>A \u201cCentral Green\u201d concept organized around a central, multi-purpose lawn buffering it from the street while enhancing streetscape and connecting the park to nearby restored historic homes.<\/li>\n<li>A \u201cGarden on the Green\u201d concept organizing the west block around a large children\u2019s area and a multi-use lawn adjacent to 14th Street.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u201cThe three options are slightly different,\u201d said Ricardo Rabines, an architect with the firm Safdie Rabines, which is designing East Village Green.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Central Green is in the center of the block celebrating the fold in the middle. The Urban Village, an open space in the center surrounded by buildings, is much more like a square, urban open grid. And the Garden Green is a series of walks that move around with a central garden, like a central park,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_8185\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-8185\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/sandiegodowntownnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/workshop1web1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-8185 size-full lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/sandiegodowntownnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/workshop1web1.jpg\" alt=\"workshop1web\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 600px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 600\/450;\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-8185\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">East Village residents attend a workshop to discuss plans for East Village Green, a proposed urban open space on the west end of the neighborhood. (Photo by Dave Schwab)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Rabines said the second workshop\u2019s purpose was to present Downtown residents with clear-cut park design choices, and then ask people to reveal the ones they feel \u201cmore comfortable\u201d with.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll of them [the alternatives] address the same issues,\u201d Rabines said, noting that they\u2019re likely to have the same amenities too.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have an underground parking garage,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have a community center, a pool, restrooms, a dog park and an outside amphitheater with a stage for performances or to host big public events.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is good,\u201d said East Village resident Mike Madigan about the East Village Green planning so far. Madigan is a consultant and member of\u00a0The East Village Association, Inc., a nonprofit managing the East Village Business Improvement District.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut, these things take a long time,\u201d Madigan cautioned.<\/p>\n<p>A 40-year veteran of planning Downtown, Madigan said development in East Village is much better than he and other planners thought it would be 40 years ago.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe had set our goals not extremely high, because it was so difficult to do anything here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Asked what he\u2019d most like to see done with East Village Green today, Madigan offered his input.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou need some multi-purpose lawn area, whether it\u2019s for people having lunch, or a soccer team playing or people walking their dogs at night or to have a party on the weekends,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Besides adding green lawn space, Madigan said the next most important thing was for the new development to have security.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEyes on the park the whole time it\u2019s open,\u201d he said, adding it is the only way to ensure park space is properly used and that problems are avoided.<\/p>\n<p>Madigan is also encouraged by East Village Green planning. He hopes the development will change Downtown\u2019s demographics.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne of the hardest things to do Downtown has been to bring young people with families here, and to create places for adults to go while they\u2019re supervising their kids,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Gary Smith, another East Village neighbor reviewing park design concepts at the June 23 workshop, felt choices being offered were \u201cfantastic,\u201d but he had a caveat.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t think they\u2019ve been quite imaginative enough,\u201d Smith said. \u201cThey should be using robotic parking [in an underground facility] because it\u2019s a lot safer.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mark Caro, a senior planner and landscape architect for Civic San Diego \u2014 which is spearheading East Village Green redevelopment \u2014 discussed a timetable for the first phase of the project, the city-owned, 20,000-square-foot portion of the block bounded by 14th Street.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA general development plan could be completed and approved by this fall,\u201d Caro said. \u201cConstruction drawings would then take a year to a year and a half which takes us to 2017. Then a year to 18 months of construction, which brings us to 2018-19.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Funding \u2014 and timing \u2014 of development for subsequent phases are uncertain now, said Caro, who noted portions of those lots where park space is to be developed are privately owned by Smart &amp; Final and SDG&amp;E, and would require negotiations to acquire them.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe project is designed to be built in phases, knowing that we may not get to these for some time,\u201d Caro said.<\/p>\n<p>For more information about the project, visit <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eastvillagegreen.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><u>eastvillagegreen.com<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014<em> Dave Schwab puede ser contactado en <\/em><a href=\"mailto:dschwabie@journalist.com\"><em>dschwabie@journalist.com<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Residents weigh in on new park By Dave Schwab East Village residents got the opportunity to review suggested design alternatives for East Village Green Park at the second of three public workshops held June 23 at the Quartyard on Market Street.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":237772,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"East Village Green","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11547,11551,11600],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-237771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-news","category-sdnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}