Coronado Shores: Still Arrogant After All These Years

By Kate Callen

When I moved to San Diego to live with my new husband, Neal Matthews, he drove me around town to show me many places he loved and a few he loathed.

In the first category, we visited The Black, where we bought a water pipe. “Ocean Beach,” he said, “is the real San Diego.”

The second category took us to another coastal stop: Coronado Shores, a cluster of ten 15-story towers that would be a strong contender for “most monstrous development on the Western Seaboard.”

Neal was a San Diego Reader reporter who had covered the saga of the Shores construction in the 1970s. “These eyesores,” he said, “are partly why California established a Coastal Commission.”

Thanks to the Commission, developers can no longer turn San Diego into Miami Beach by erecting massive towers that block off the ocean. But there are smaller ways that arrogance can commandeer public spaces for private benefit.

I saw an example on April 16, when I drove to Coronado to walk on the beach. I regularly park in a public access lot that Coronado Shores was required by law to provide. It fills up on weekends, but spaces are available on weekdays.

That Thursday at 12 noon, every spot was taken, and two-thirds were filled by construction vehicles: electricians, mechanical services, window and door installation, utility trucks with ladders strapped on their roofs.

I parked on Silver Strand Boulevard, walked to the lot, and talked to several contractors. They said they were hired to work in the Shores buildings. But they were not allowed to park on Shores property. Management told them to use the beach lot: “They said it’s okay, it’s for the public.”

I asked a woman who was circling the lot in an electric cart if this was normal. She told me commercial trucks had been filling the lot for weeks. “This isn’t right,” she said. “The Shores should let their contractors park on their property.”

It isn’t right, but it’s legal. Strictly speaking, any vehicle of any size can park in a public lot. If the lot doesn’t post time limits (this one doesn’t), vehicles can stay for as long as they like.

This raises the question of what “public” means and why the phrase “beach access” has such a strong emotional pull.

Most people would agree that a public access beach lot is intended for beachgoers – families with kids, surfers and swimmers, vacationers, teenagers on spring break.

No one wants a public beach lot used for hours-long commercial vehicle storage. Nor would we want the lot filled with food trucks and vans with merchandise for sale.

All this will come to a head in May, when people start flocking to beaches again, weekdays included. Many will be Coronado residents, who enjoy living in a pristine city where the municipal government is extremely responsive to constituent concerns.

Will Coronado Shores have the clout to insist its hired contractors park in the lot for long stretches? Or will the Shores be a good citizen, provide on-site parking for its maintenance crews, and respect public access to a public beach?