San Diego State University has taken steps to ensure that it retains control of land needed to a build a housing and retail development at the southern edge of campus.
The SDSU Research Foundation, a nonprofit auxiliary, has sold land included in the proposed project site to the university for $14.8 million. University spokesman Jack Beresford said this ensures that the city won't seize the land through eminent domain.
The San Diego Redevelopment Agency also has proposed a commercial and housing development on much of the same land.
“The university was concerned that the city would try to use eminent domain to take control of the property from the foundation,” Beresford said.
With the property now under university ownership, the city is less likely to try to take the land, Beresford said, adding that it would be unprecedented for a Redevelopment Agency to seize university property.
Janice Weinrick, deputy executive director of the Redevelopment Agency, couldn't be reached for comment.
SDSU's project, Plaza Linda Verde, would be built in two phases. The first phase would be situated on formerly foundation-owned land on the west side of College Avenue, from Montezuma Road north to the campus transit center.
The second phase would be partially located on the east side of College Avenue, from Montezuma Road north to the campus. It also would be built on the west side of Campanile Drive, from Montezuma Road north to Lindo Paseo. The foundation owns some of this land, but the university has not bought it because it is primarily focused on the first phase now.
The Redevelopment Agency recently took steps to solicit developers for a project on land bordered by Aztec Walk to the north, Montezuma Road to the south, SDSU campus boundaries to the east and Campanile Drive to the west. About half the land is owned by the university and its foundation.
Beresford said the university wasn't so much fearful that the city would take control of the property through eminent domain, “but there was concern that a legal challenge could delay a future project on the site.”
Beresford said the transfer of property for the first phase also improves the financial health of the foundation.
“The foundation has been left in somewhat of a diminished financial condition after going out and purchasing a number of properties with the idea that a project would be realized on the site,” he said. “But for several years, that project (the ill-fated Paseo) has languished, and those properties were non-revenue-performing.”
The projects proposed by the Redevelopment Agency and the university are replacements for the long-stalled Paseo project, a Horton Plaza-style urban village.
Sherry Saavedra: (619) 542-4598; sherry.saavedra@uniontrib.com
