City OKs Plan to Redevelop Barrio Logan

Barrio Logan, the blighted 133-acre area stunted by highway construction and neglect in the last 20 years, may be on its way back.

After more than a decade in planning, the San Diego City Council approved a proposal for the area’s redevelopment Tuesday, which will entice businesses and developers with tax incentives and federal grants to rebuild the area bounded roughly by Interstate-5, the bay, 16th and 26th streets.

Officially, the council gave initial approval to both an environmental impact statement and ordinance to get the project started. The project comes back before the council May 20, but a repeat of Tuesday’s unanimous vote is expected.

“This has been a long time coming for the area,” said Deputy Mayor Bob Filner, whose district includes Barrio Logan. “We will see industrial land separated from commercial and residential land. We’ll see a a major supermarket in Barrio Logan before too long and more housing and jobs for area residents.”

The area, an historic Chicano neighborhood hurt by highway and bridge construction two decades ago, is a hodgepodge of junkyards, decayed homes, and scattered small businesses. The closest supermarket is three miles away.

The redevelopment plan is expected to draw a major market to the area, a central plaza, and new office and retail space, according to Keith Scott, the city’s redevelopment coordinator.

“We’re trying to bring a little order about the chaos,” he said.

The hope is that, similar to other redevelopment recipes, Barrio Logan can be prosperous again within several decades by having the city freeze tax rates, attract new businesses and developers to the area, and build a new tax base in later years that can be used for low-interest loans, bonding programs and other methods of financing.

The city has a $300,000 federal grant from which to work, but developers and businesses can negotiate their own deals with federal agencies for more financial help, Scott said.

There are, however, obstacles in the way of Barrio Logan’s transformation. The city will have to embark on a major toxic cleanup program in the neighborhood, for example, and a major Newport Beach developer in negotiations to build the supermarket has not yet signed on the dotted line.

The adoption of the first plan that lead to Tuesday’s action began in 1979, Scott said, and in the past decade, “the difficulty has been in getting organized, putting together background studies and finding the money to put this plan together,” Scott said. “It has been an expensive and lengthy process.”

Construction in the new redevelopment area could begin as early as August but there is no telling when the neighborhood will be thriving again.

“It took 10 years and three different set of negotiators to get Horton Plaza started,” Scott said. “This could take anywhere from two to three years or 10 to 15 years. It all depends on the economic climate.”