Blue Sky: Downtown’s largest rental project approved

Blue Sky, downtown’s largest apartment project at 939 units, won final approval Wednesday from Civic San Diego.

Promoters hope the $300 million project will appeal to young singles seeking an urban lifestyle and help satisfy demand from downtown’s burgeoning population expected to triple to 90,000 over the next 30 years.

Located at Eighth Avenue and B Street, the project by a Phoenix developer would open in two roughly equal phases, the eastern tower of 21-25 stories in the spring of 2015 and the second on the west of 20-23 stories in 2017, according to the present schedule. The western site would remain a parking lot in the meantime.

“Downtown San Diego is one of the best apartment markets in the entire nation -- it always has been and always will be,” said Bruce Gray, the architect-developer of the project at Gray Development in Phoenix, in partnership with Multifamily Equity Fund.

He said the rental rates will be decided later but noted that the current market rate starts at about $2.25 per square foot or about $1,000 per month for the Blue Sky units if they were available today.

Unless the project is appealed to the Planning Commission, Gray said he hopes to get city building permits cleared in 90 days and start construction this summer.

The project site is located on a largely vacant block between two of downtown’s biggest developments -- Symphony Towers to the west and Vantage Pointe to the east, currently downtown’s biggest apartment complex at 679 units.

CivicSD’s predecessor organization, the Centre City Development Corp., had approved a different version by Gray in 2006, but the recession and other factors delayed action.

CivicSD will collect higher development fees, including about $4.3 million that can go to creating new parks in the downtown area. The developer will pay another $5 million in inclusionary-housing charges, CivicSD planner Brad Richter said.

But Blue Sky will have two pocket parks for the public at the northeast and southwest corners as well as a green roof with swimming pools for tenants and other significant landscaping along the 24-foot-wide sidewalk on Eighth Avenue, designated as a “green street” in the downtown community plan.

However, this is not a luxury apartment complex aimed at empty nesters and part-timers.

The project will contain 223 studios, averaging 455 square feet; 549 one-bedrooms of about 700 square feet; and just 167 two-bedrooms of about 957 square feet.

The downtown citizens advisory committee, meeting last week, urged the developer to add in some three-bedroom units to accommodate families.

But retired developer Mike Madigan, a downtown resident and activist in local political and development circles, told CivicSD directors that school-age children are rare in downtown apartment and condo towers.

“When the kids get old enough to go to elementary school, they move,” Madigan said.

If downtown gets a new grade school and the new Central Library opens this year, he said, these and other amenities will probably attract more families.

“You will find the market respond to the need for three-bedroom units,” he said.

CivicSD directors wrestled with some project details, such as the narrow parking stalls, the pop-out windows surrounded by a blue metal band, an exhaust vent in the middle of a planter box and only 80 cubic feet of storage, when downtown residential standards call for 240.

Gary Smith, president of the San Diego Downtown Residents Group, said retaining the number of parking spaces was more important than increasing storage in the garage.

“The people in the studios haven’t accommodated a lot of stuff -- they’re just starting out,” he said.

Director Cythnia Morgan cast the lone “no” vote, citing the many deviations from downtown’s usual development guidelines and last-minute changes she thought should be reviewed during a one-month delay.

But the other directors accepted the last-minute changes and several, including Morgan, said Blue Sky and other developments like it are needed to house an expected tripling of the downtown population to 90,000 over the next three decades.