Yesterday, the San Diego City Council voted 6-1 to approve over $45 million worth of traffic and aesthetic improvements, in order to celebrate the centennial of the Panama-California Exposition, which our great city hosted in 1915-16.
I want to offer thanks and support for the Council in approving this project, largely envisioned by Qualcomm founder Irwin Jacobs, and put forward by the Plaza de Panama Committee.
For more news on the project, check out the coverage in U-T San Diego.
The Committee was formed a few years ago and developed an all-encompassing master plan to remove vehicular traffic from the plaza’s central square, restoring the area to its’ former glory, with additional modern aesthetics.
Although the plan is not without a few, nuanced faults — my personal beef being the addition of a paid parking structure replacing years of free parking — the overall plan does much to help re-envision our city’s cultural center in the veil of its’ 1915 heyday.
The original Exposition transformed Balboa Park — which had only been dedicated as a large, open space — into a cultural center for San Diego. This, in turn, helped transform San Diego.
As a regional asset, it’s important to keep a dedicated focus in continuing to renovate and improve Balboa Park, as necessary, to survive through generations.
