By Jennifer Van Grove / San Diego Union-Tribune / Jan. 9, 2024
The United States Navy has selected a development team led by San Diego-based Manchester Financial Group [surprise, surprise] and McLean, Virgina-based Edgemoor Infrastructure and Real Estate to replace its obsolete NAVWAR facilities and remake the rest of the 70.3-acre military campus in San Diego’s Midway District with private development. …
The parties expect to soon enter into an exclusive negotiating agreement, or ENA, which opens the door for the first time in the lengthy process to robust dialogue between the federal agency and its new partners. The contract will also outline the tasks required to complete a transaction. …
Manchester, a prominent hotel and commercial development firm chaired by Doug Manchester, was similarly awarded the 12-acre Navy Broadway Complex in 2006. As part of that deal, the developer erected a waterfront office building for the Navy Region Southwest, Naval Facilities Engineering Command Southwest and Navy Region Southwest Reserve Component Command. But it sold off most of the leasehold in 2020 to real estate developer IQHQ.
Although details are slim, the Manchester/Edgemoor team pitched turning the NAVWAR complex into a mini city of its own with new government facilities, ample housing, office space, a few hundred hotel rooms, parks, a trolley stop, and an assortment of ground-level shops and restaurants that could help the project rival downtown San Diego as a popular destination, Eldredge said. The team presented a range of mixed-use concepts that are not being publicly disclosed, but were informed by the development alternatives studied in the Navy’s 2021 draft environmental impact statement, said Greg Geisen, who is the project manager for the NAVWAR revitalization effort. …
The proposed land exchange is modeled after the agency’s 2006 agreement with Manchester Financial Group for the Navy Broadway Complex. The developer received a 99-year leasehold for the 12-acre property between Pacific Highway and North Harbor Drive in exchange for building the Navy a new, administrative headquarters. The 17-story skyscraper, completed in 2020 and now known as Navy Building One, was built and paid for entirely by Manchester Financial for an undisclosed sum.
This article is for U-T subscribers only.
Manchester is so conflicted and a piece of the establishment that doesn’t get the attention it should.