Renderings are available for an as-yet officially named city park to be built adjacent to the Andia condominium project at the borderline of the East Village and Core-Columbia downtown neighborhoods.
Early indications were that the 24,000-square-foot space might be named “Symphony Park,” in homage to the newly renovated Jacobs Music Center, home to the San Diego Symphony, which is half a block away on B Street.
Reporting from the summer revealed that symphony supporters were concerned that a Symphony Park that became sketchy or unkempt might negatively reflect on the classical music organization.
For now the park is designated as North Central Square Park.
FROM THE DOCUMENTERS: This story came in part from notes taken by Jennifer Hua, a San Diego Documenter, at a Downtown Community Planning Council meeting in November. The Documenters program trains and pays community members to document what happens at public meetings. It’s run by inewsource, a nonpartisan nonprofit newsroom dedicated to investigative and accountability journalism. Read more about the program here. BECOME A DOCUMENTER
The proposed design of the park includes a slew of amenities, including:
- A music-themed children’s play area enclosed by a 4-foot steel mesh fence.
- A signature Civic Music sign and a music-themed shade structure.
- Two pickleball courts with a 42-inch fence.
- Synthetic-turf dog run with a 5-foot fence.
- A variety of shade trees.
- Benches and urban rocker swings.
The address of the park is 1112 Ninth Avenue, located along C Street (and a trolley line) between Eighth and Ninth Avenues. The adjacent Andia condo project is still underway and not expected to be competed until a date-to-be-determined in 2026. The park will likely not open before the condos.
Hesitancy by symphony officials to be associated with a downtown park likely stems in part from negative headlines received by Fault Line Park in East Village.
That park is a public-private partnership between the city of San Diego and developer Pinnacle International. Pinnacle, which built two condo towers and Fault Line Park on the block surrounded by Fourteenth and Fifteenth streets and Island Avenue and J Street, is tasked with day-to-day management of the park.
Downtown residents complain of lapses of oversight by security guards, rampant drug usage, broken lights and unattended areas littered with dog poop (and a sub-par dog run made of rocks).
The to-be-renamed North Central Square Park next to Andia will be managed by the city, and not in an arrangement similar to Fault Line Park.
Andia will be the first ownership/non-rental high rise built in downtown San Diego in eight years. SDSun
