On Monday, January 27, the San Diego City Council voted in closed session to select a development team to convert the infamous 101 Ash St. office tower into what’s being proposed as “hundreds of subsidized apartments.”
The companies Create Dev LLC and MRK Partners Inc. were chosen to redo the asbestos-ridden building and civic blunder into a potential downtown housing success project.
End of story? Not exactly. This is San Diego.
It just so happens that Create Dev is run by the head of the San Diego Planning Commission, Kelly Moden. The person who chairs the Commission was just chosen to head up the make-over of one of the most controversial of the city’s recent real estate deals. Moden was appointed a year ago by Mayor Todd Gloria.
Gloria was proud. On Monday, he made a statement:
“Today, after a briefing on two well-vetted proposals to redevelop the city-owned building at 101 Ash St., the City Council directed staff to enter into exclusive negotiations with Create Dev LLC and MRK Partners on their proposal to create 253 affordable homes with ground-floor retail at the site. City staff will brief the council regularly as negotiations progress over the next number of months.”
Moden was happy of course. She said:
“We are thrilled and ready to get to work. “Our redevelopment of 101 Ash will provide more than beautiful, affordable housing to San Diego working families — it will also activate a community. We look forward to working with the city on next steps, and to sharing more about this project that delivers unparalleled benefits to the city and the broader San Diego community.”
The UT’s Jennifer van Grove reported today:
The decision means the entities will begin more formally negotiating a deal that could eventually see San Diego shed the financial weight of an unoccupied property that continues to vex the city. …
Create-MRK beat out rival Affirmed Housing with a bid proposing 250 residential units deed restricted for people earning between 30% and 80% of the area median income. The area median income for a family of four in San Diego County is $119,500. The plan also calls for 25,000 square feet of first-floor storefronts and a 4,000 square-foot childcare facility.
Create is a one-woman shop, run by San Diego Planning Commissioner Kelly Modén, that specializes in multifamily housing. Los Angeles-based MRK is a privately held real estate investment company solely focused on affordable housing development, including hotel- and motel-to-residential conversion projects. The company was started by President Sydne Garchik in 2015.
The partners have collaborated on several projects, including the Vista Woods Apartments project in Pinole. The project in Northern California was a ground-up construction project and includes 179 affordable units for seniors.
Gloria is thrilled, Moden is thrilled. Less thrilled are the residents and neighbors of The Minn, Kelly Moden’s colossal project at 1905 Broadway in Golden Hill. Just this mid-December, Rag reporter Kate Callen wrote:
The 8-story monolith would be a blight in any part of Golden Hill, an older neighborhood of mainly modest homes and quiet streets.
But the site for Moden’s project is stunningly heartless. When finished next spring, the Minn will loom over an enclave of historic homes that were carefully moved there from other areas.
The 900 block of 20th Street has long been a Golden Hill architectural jewel box. It boasts two Carriage houses from the 1880s, two Victorians and a Queen Anne from the 1900s, and three Craftsmans from the 1910s.
Machado, a vintage home preservationist, learned about the Moden project when heavy equipment started excavating the property next to his restored Craftsman.
“This was done under the radar,” he said. “We were never notified.” `
“The property was zoned for 14 units. The Minn will have 91 units, six times that. And it’s being built just 15 inches from my property line.”
Moden was reluctant to meet with Machado. When they finally sat down to talk, she was implacable. “She told me she was doing everything ‘by the book,’” Machado recalled. “She showed no feeling for the neighborhood. Her attitude was, ‘This is how it’s going to be.’”
Is this one more example of a brazen and open conflict of interest shown by local San Diego leaders and their developer friends? Of course not. This is just business as usual for our fair city.
For all the other Toad deals, I was wondering what’s the catch? Shed the financial weight? Likely not. Just another behind closed doors play and get paid.
What’s worse is that the city rejected a better deal, to provide 800 supportive housing units instead of this miserly 253 ‘affordable’ (up to 120% AMI) last October. And remember they scuttled another proposal for 393 very-low income residences (up to 80% AMI) last April. The fix has been in for this sweetheart deal for a long time.
So public property is being gifted for the enrichment of a political crony while depriving us of housing we actually need, a scandal from start to finish courtesy of Fraud Gloria? Now *that’s* a “San Diego Special!”
If I were a cynical person I would be skeptical of yet another political insider given the reins of a project that may, or may not, be the best proposal for the site. But this certainly smacks of the San Diego way of doing business. As Mat says, a San Diego Special.
Now, that being said, I’m going to hope for the best. Gensler and Swinerton are very capable firms who can be counted on to provide good design and construction management. The type of experience they can provide will be critical – a large office building simply does not have a floor plate that is easily converted to residential uses.
Still, the optics of the process, selection behind the closed doors of a Brown Act allowed closed session with no public input, somewhat taints the result.
But what are the terms? These deals usually smack against the taxpayers.
I thought obrag only supported new housing that’s affordable, and that’s exactly what this project is. Yet you still find reasons to oppose it.
Why should any sensible person listen to you when all you provide is opposition and no solutions to our housing crisis? I hope others can see through the whack-a-mole NIMBYism on display here and at many community planning groups.
Gee, thanks Paul Jamason for continuing to spout the corrupt YIMBY line. You and your cohorts have had the mayor and city council’s ears for years, but the chickens are coming home to roost to find such atrocities as the Pacific Beach 23 story Pencil Tower — that even Scott Peters opposes — and such blatant conflicts of interest as Moden’s bold moves.
That is “The OB Rag” to you, jamason.
Paul, you are (perhaps deliberately) missing the point here. Nobody is questioning the concept of turning 101 Ash into housing for low/moderate income persons, we’re questioning the process.
I think that trying to turn the 101 Ash debacle into something actually beneficial would be great, but, like many things, the devil is in the details. Is the Moden proposal truly superior to the Affirmed Housing proposal? We don’t really know because we don’t know the details, but the choice of a politically aligned city hall insider raises more than eyebrows. You only have to look back at prior city deals, including the 101 Ash lease-to-own deal or the choice of the McMillan Naval Training Center redevelopment plan to be skeptical of a deal with an insider getting chosen. We question the business as usual deal making that has so often backfired.
Exactly. When we don’t know the details of a city deal that will benefit a Gloria crony, our sordid history (101 Ash, NTC, Midway Rising) gives us ample reason to worry, and we need to train a klieg light on the project and keep it there. Fool me once…
As for “affordable” housing, how much truly affordable housing has been generated under Gloria’s leadership? We’ve seen a glut of expensive studios, very few units for families, and almost none for low-income workers.
Isn’t Kelly Moden, “head of the Planning Commission”, guilty of a conflict of interest??? What’s with the dumping of the plan to build “800 supportive housing units” and the mayor going for the okie doke of “253” affordable units. Anyone following the reality of what the politicians like to pretend they’re really doing some kind gestures for the people when they say “affordable”, when the reality is NOT affordable to the folks who need housing the most.
Callen, Schultz, Wahlstrom, Webb all pointed out the quiet, behind closed doors, shenanigans of the Mayor and Council puppets, Dept. heads, and Mayoral appointees in the Planning Commission and other appointed authorities.
Isn’t chairing the City of San Diego Planning Commission a blatant CONFLICT OF INTEREST when bidding on a contract with the City of San Diego?
Picky, picky, picky,
Will she resign from Planning Commission or just recuse herself?