Rethinking Downtown San Diego Beyond the 9 to 5
David McCullough, ASLA, PLA
Principal Landscape Architect
If it’s been a while since you’ve spent time in Downtown San Diego, you may picture empty storefronts, vacant office spaces, and the concerns about safety that have shaped the conversation around the area in recent years. But in a recent article for Commercial Observer, McCullough principal landscape architect David McCullough looks beyond these challenges to consider what’s already underway, and what Downtown could become next.
David points to a growing momentum fueled by a diverse group of stakeholders, including businesses, residents, visitors, universities, cultural institutions, philanthropic organizations, and new investment. Individually, these efforts may not transform Downtown, but together, they can begin to change how people experience and interact with the city.
“Downtown increasingly feels like it has reached a turning point. The question isn’t whether it will recover, but how it will recover, and what progress is already underway.”
Investments in cleanliness, safety, and public amenities are helping create the conditions for a more active and welcoming Downtown. New and improved public spaces, including East Village Green and Horton Plaza Park, have the potential to give people more reasons to gather, linger, and return.
For David, the details of these spaces matter. Thoughtfully designed public environments can help shape how people experience a neighborhood and create opportunities for people from different backgrounds and communities to intersect.
Downtown’s office vacancy also presents an opportunity to reconsider how existing buildings and properties can serve an evolving population. With a dense residential community and public transit connections within walking distance of restaurants, workplaces, entertainment, and cultural amenities, Downtown has many of the ingredients needed to support a more diverse and active urban environment.
Rather than being defined by the traditional rhythm of the work week, Downtown San Diego has an opportunity to become a place that serves people with different schedules, interests, and reasons for being there.
Downtown San Diego is not finished. It is continuing to evolve. With thoughtful investment and design, it has the opportunity to become something that works for more people, more of the time.