The San Diego Padres’ $20-million genie is out of the bottle. After fast-tracking renovation plans through city hall without a public review process, the new “family-friendly” version of Gallagher Square Park is ready for the team’s home opening game on March 28, 2024.
Local media has fawned over the renovation. News reports offered glowing reviews, some before the 2.8-acre public park adjacent to Petco Park even re-opened.
Some East Village residents have had less enthusiastic reactions. A vocal number believe Padres management has disingenuously used a family-friendly spin as a facade for the team’s primary goal of turning the public park into a money-making amphitheater for crowds of 10,000-plus.
Have we been thrown a curveball just prior to Opening Day on the 20th anniversary of Petco Park?
Padres CEO Erik Greupner told one fawning TV news crew: “We’ve learned over the past 19 years how to best activate the park for families and kids. We’ve relocated the Wiffle Ball field and created a new playground that blows the old one away, all with kids and families in mind.”
The Wiffle Ball field was moved from out in front of the Sycuan Stage, where the Padres oversee production of a growing number of music concerts. (Profits from the concerts are split between the team and the city of San Diego.)
The mini-ballfield has been relegated to the back side of Gallagher Square. The Wiffle ballers share the periphery of the renovation with a fenced, artificial-turf dog park, and the updated kids playground.
The new playground lays claim to the dubious honor of possessing “the largest climbable baseball bat.” Parents with kids frolicking on the playground before a March 25 exhibition game at Petco Park told me the area is “an upgrade” over the previous playground.
Exact measurements weren’t provided, but the square footage of the family friendly elements of the renovation seem to be dwarfed by a factor of 4-to-1 compared to the amphitheater components.
The majority of Gallagher Square (the word “Park” seems to have been dropped) is now a tiered setting that faces the Sycuan Stage. A grassy hill has been replaced by artificial turf and a few rows of concrete (seats?). At the bottom of the hill and in front of the stage: a cement base.
There are painted outlines on the cement that suggest spots where Pickleball courts could be temporarily erected.
No schedule has been provided by the Padres as to how often Pickleball will be offered.
East Village residents are anxious to hear what parts of the new Gallagher Square will be open regularly to the public, and how often.
Especially dog owners. Tricia Moore was a regular at Gallagher Square Park with Ozzie, her 9-year-old Cairn Terrier. Moore regularly spent four to five days a week at the park. She and other dog owners would stand under shade trees as dogs cavorted on the grass that has now been replaced with artificial turf.
“I’m boycotting the park,” Moore says. “The Padres have robbed the city of a park that had greenery and trees. It’s a circus with an amphitheater now.”
She says the new fenced dog run in the back of Gallagher Square is so tiny that she refers to it as a “dog hallway.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Moore says. “A lot of dog owners are just now finding out the dog park is a lot smaller than they thought it would be.”
What do the Padres say about public access to Gallagher Square for people, pups or Pickleballers? In the past, the public park has been closed more than it has been open. One factor: when a concert is scheduled, the park is closed for days before and after, for set-up and tear-down.
To get some insight, I asked a Padres communications department staffer for access to a March 25 ribbon-cutting ceremony. No reply. After the event, I was told it was “invite-only.”
Subsequently, I requested an interview with a team spokesperson.
The response: “Unfortunately, we’re unable to accommodate one-on-one interviews at this time as our spokespeople’s schedules are extremely spread thin in preparation for the season.”
Sparse dissemination of information has become par for the course, at least for The San Diego Sun. The Padres have been slow or unwilling to communicate about Gallagher Square since the end of the 2023 baseball season.
During the Padres disappointing on-field season last year, team management was fending off excessive noise complaints from East Village residents about concerts held in Gallagher Square Park.
Note: Petco Park hosts major concerts inside the stadium bowl that attract crowds of 40,000-plus. For example, Billy Joel and Sting will share the field on April 13.
East Village residents say concerts held in Petco Park are soundproofed. However, the concerts held on the Sycuan Stage in Gallagher Square Park used amplification devices that pointed directly at condos in the neighborhood.
A lawsuit was filed in 2023. The case is pending a judge’s determination that the Padres have taken steps with the Gallagher Square renovation to remediate concert noise.
Gallagher Square has scheduled at least a dozen musical acts for the summer of 2024. On April 28, Mexican pop group Belanova is set to take the Sycuan Stage.
For perspective on how the public green space adjacent to the Padres home field evolved from “The Park at the Park” to Gallagher Square, I looked up Marty Poirier. He’s a principal and co-founder of Spurlock Poirier, the landscape architecture firm that initially designed the park.
“In the early 2000s, Andy Spurlock and I were dedicated to making downtown a more livable place,” Poirier says. “The Padres organization at the time was also very aligned with that goal and mission–to make a space for the people that integrated into downtown.”
From the beginning, Poirier says the Park at the Park was a collaborative idea, controlled by the Padres, to be a low-admission-price area to watch games and to be open to the public on off-game days.
At the time we chatted, Poirier had not been inside the new Gallagher Square and declined to offer his opinion on the new design.
He did say: “At the Park at the Park, the public could walk around anywhere and everything was usable by the public. It does seem to be much more of a privatized place now. How the neighbors get treated remains to be seen.”
The Padres appear to view Gallagher Square as a revenue source first and a public park secondarily.
That’s not to say Gallagher Square is a bust. The raised Tony Gwynn Terrace–which separates the kid and dog amenities in the back from the amphitheater lawn in front–is an apt reaffirmation of of the greatness of San Diego’s Mr. Padre.
The Tony Gwynn Terrace is essentially a museum dedicated to a Hall of Famer who spent 20 years in a Padres uniform. It’s an homage to his greatness as a player as well as his dedication to the community.
The wonderful statue of Gwynn swinging a bat now sits atop the Terrace. It’s been moved–slightly closer to a new concession stand, and is in symbolic alignment with a distant statue of former Padres star Trevor Hoffman depicted in mid-pitch.
Great decision to enhance the respect shown to Gwynn.
Of course, during Sycuan Stage concerts, the Tony Gwynn Terrace also creates more crowd space for concert-goers.
Cha-ching. SDSun
