This week’s announcement that the San Diego City Council had chosen developers to develop the long-ago Sempra Energy SDG&E building at 101 Ash Street is a big deal.
The aging asbestos-filled office tower that has been vacant for years, has been a legal and economic debacle for the city for decades, tarnishing city leadership and even becoming an embarrassment to the city’s reputation itself.
According to the reports by the San Diego Union Tribune, the development team the city council chose is led by two women, including one local land-use official, will convert the office tower into hundreds of subsidized apartments, turning a civic blunder as the UT called it into a downtown housing success story.
With the need for more affordable housing during a time when finding affordable housing is a challenge in San Diego, and the homelessness problem remains a big problem, makes this plan for 101 Ash Street is a big deal.
And the project also will have 25,000 square feet of first-floor storefronts and a 4,000 square-foot childcare facility.
So the you might say the plan for this tall empty eye-sore of a problem at 101 Ash Street is a plan that rises out of the civic ashes in San Diego and long overdue.
(Photo reporting partner 10 News)