Updates: Design Review and San Diego High School

By Michael Stepner

The reconstruction of San Diego High School prompted a look at the opportunities to “grow” the park and link it more closely to its artistic and cultural neighbors to the north and the business community to the south. The first phase with a reworked and redesigned SDHS administration building nears completion. Photo by C100.

Design Review

At the March meeting of the city’s official park planning body, the Balboa Park Committee (BPC), C100 President Kevin Carpenter requested that BPC re-docket the issue of Design Review to follow up on the 2021 report and recommendations of the Balboa Park Design Review and Assistance Exploratory Committee.

For the April meeting, BPC included Design Review as a workshop item and considered the exploratory group’s concept of how a pre-approval general review of park projects could be instituted to enable changes to project designs at an early stage, before final drawings are made.

The April report to BPC can be found online at:   

tinyurl.com/yt2j26yn.

As Matthew Carmona at University College London has commented on the subject, “Look at design review not as an approval or denial process, but as a tool to improve the design of a project with all the elements/context being understood and considered.”

Several pending projects in the park could benefit from a design assistance and review process, including the Village Grill, Starlight Bowl and improvements to the Timken Museum and the San Diego Museum of Art.

While Park Director Andy Field was unable to attend the April BPC meeting, at a later date it’s expected he will present a staff report outlining possible changes to the Municipal Code that would re-establish a citywide parks design review and assistance process.

At the BPC April meeting, the committee was asked to establish as an interim process a subcommittee for Design Assistance, modeled after the one used by the Historic Resources Board.

Balboa Park - San Diego High School Connections Working Group Report

This 65-page illustrated study, released in September 2024, was requested by the City Council as part of its decision in 2021 to renew the lease of city park land to the school district for San Diego High School to remain in place for another 99 years. It is available online at tinyurl.com/balboapark-sdhs.

The assignment for the Working Group of park stakeholders was to explore the opportunities that could result from making “a school in the park rather than a school occupying park land.” A date has not yet been set to present the final report to the council for its acceptance and referral to city departments on implementation.

The Working Group recommended nearly 60 major and minor actions to tie the school more closely – both physically and programmatically – to the park. Meanwhile, construction continues on the first phase of a multi-year plan to rebuild the high school.

The relevance of the report’s broad-ranging nature and scope can be seen in a recent study of the City Hall/ Community Concourse redevelopment that mirrors many of the recommendations of the Working Group.

The study, by U3 Consultants, was funded by the Prebys Foundation and the Downtown San Diego Partnership (one of the Working Group’s member organizations) and examines the prospective revitalization of downtown and connections to Balboa Park.