Waterfront Redevelopment Continues with Lane Field North
We’ve spent time checking out the new Waterfront Park and first phase of the North Embarcadero Visionary Plan, but now our attention has turned to Lane Field North. Work is well underway on a 17-story, dual-branded hotel and a 2-acre public park.
The long-planned project is located on the northeast section of Harbor Drive and Broadway. The site gets its name from the former Lane Field baseball park, which was the home of the minor league San Diego Padres from 1936 to 1957.
Since the 1960s, the site has been used as a surface parking lot for cruises and waterfront access. After years of delays, the Port of San Diego broke ground on the development last May.
The two-part hotel will include a 253-room SpringHill Suites by Marriott, as well as a 147-room Residence Inn by Marriott. While those aren’t exactly the most exciting hotel brands, they’ll complement the more upscale 500-room InterContinental hotel planned for the future Lane Field South. The dual hotels will each have separate lobbies, but share an elevator bank.
Plans for Lane Field North include approximately 27,000 square feet of restaurant and retail space on the first and second levels. Three levels of above-ground parking will accommodate about 400 cars. The Port recently approved an art installation titled “Ripples,” which will decorate those parking levels with blades of aluminum displaying various patterns from different angles.
The retail and restaurant spaces will come to life at night, as this rendering suggests.
The project also includes a public park on the west side along Harbor Drive.
The first phase of the park looks nearly complete. Notice the “pitcher’s mound” above—a nod to Lane Field’s history.
Here’s a view of the completed project, including an eventual build-out of the US Navy site to the north of the current construction, as well as the taller tower on Lane Field South.
While previous plans depicted those wood loungers as a “seat wall” stretching across the entire site, that doesn’t seem to be the case any longer, with those small plants already in place.
If all goes as planned, Lane Field North should be completed in 2016. Until then, we’ll be watching this key piece of the Downtown waterfront come together.
