Downtown Living - Little Italy spectacularly achieves its ‘goals’ with housing, businesses and residents all prospering

August 2006 (San Diego Metropolitan Magazine)
By Marty Graham, Staff Writer


When Italy played France for the World Cup in July, there was just one place in San Diego to be: in Little Italy, where 15,000 people packed India Street to watch the game on a Megatron screen brought in by the neighborhood association. “Little Italy is that kind of place,” says resident Pasquale Iolele. “It’s a neighborhood where people are full of life and embrace tradition.”

The neighborhood was born in the 19th century, when Italian tuna fishing families arrived. Early maps show nary a road in Mission Hills but carefully drawn streets from Ash to Laurel, east to the first ridge. The first fire station was built in 1906.

As the rest of San Diego filled in around it, tuna fishing gave way to commerce. About a third of the neighborhood was sacrificed to build Interstate 5 and much of what remained fell into an semi-industrial footprint, not quite Downtown and not quite Mission Hills. But it never lost its heritage, signaled to the world by the family-owned restaurants along India Street and Our Lady of the Rosary Church on the corner of State and Date streets.

In the last seven years, the neighborhood has grown and changed. Where parking lots, tire stores and car dealers stood, new businesses and condominium developments are springing up. Already a haven for artists and galleries, the bayside neighborhood attracted designers and architects as well as thousands of new residents who’ve snapped up the modern, quirky condominiums as fast as they hit the market.

“The spiritual base hasn’t changed,” says Marco LiMandri, chairman of the Little Italy Association. “But we have more public spaces and more public art than before, we have view corridors so we can always feel the presence of the bay and there’s more to come.”

For the past five years, people have moved into the neighborhood in droves, into nearly 2,000 new condominiums and townhouses that are part of the Centre City Development Corp.’s revitalization of Downtown. Hundreds more are slated for construction by the end of 2007.

Ecco Lofts, 10 homes designed for usable space, came online in March. A few remain available, reports Judy Finkbiner, the manager of Columbo Venture LLC. “There’s a lot of interest because of the neighborhood – it’s such a great place to live,” Finkbiner says.

The changes are blending well with the community character.

“The whole area has changed dramatically but what has stayed constant is the sense of neighborhood,” Finkbiner says. “We still have a large Italian population and a large live-and-work population, so it stays really comfortable, with people watching out for each other and great walkability.”

The boom has drawn a dozen new restaurants and invigorated the ones already there. Filippi’s, one of the longest standing Italian restaurants on India Street, has hungry people waiting in even longer lines for those red-checkered tablecloths and marinara sauce on weekends. The Busalacchis have opened new restaurants and the peak hours at Mimmo’s Italian Village have shifted from lunch to include the growing dinner crowd.

And the neighborhood is alive with events. On Kettner Boulevard, The Arts & Design District sponsors Kettner Nights, a party with shops. San Diego ArtWalk has found its footing in Little Italy, and the neighborhood is now home to the Italian Festa in the fall and Carnevale in the spring. It has its own bocce ball tournament and stickball league.

“We make sure our events promote and celebrate the character of the neighborhood,” Di Landri says.

Residents lay the credit for much of that sense of neighborhood, and the impressive advances towards the feeling of openness and warmth in the neighborhood to the Little Italy Association. “This is about their hard work and amazing planning,” Iolele says. “It doesn’t feel overpopulated, and it’s the kind of place where you want to hang out, where your friends want to come and visit.”

In the next few months, CityMark Development LLC and CLB Partners will break ground on Pier, the firm’s third condominium development in Little Italy.

The building follows the Downtown trend of mixed use, retail on the ground floors and residence above; that’s based on the way old European cities are built. But it has a distinctly modern look; two towers that will hold 230 units and 10,500 square feet of retail space. Designed by Martinez + Cutri, Pier will have three distinct areas, all reminiscent of cargo ships, the pier and sailboats that dot the bay in its sight lines.

“It’s a landmark building inspired by the bay and the tradition of this great neighborhood,” says CityMark principal Russ Haley. “We have a lot invested in this community and Pier will be our absolute signature building.”

Pier will rise at the site of the old Metro Volkswagen Audi dealership, on Kettner between Fir and Grape streets. To the west, residents will have a view of the landmark County Administration Building and a front seat for the development of the North Embarcadero project, an effort of the city, county and Port that will transform the waterfront in a more pedestrian friendly environment. The Trolley and Amtrak stations are within a few blocks.

CityMark finished Doma, a seven-story condominium building on Kettner between Date and Fir streets, in 2003 and broke ground last year on Aperture, an 11-story, mixed-use condominium building.

It is among a dozen developers, including K. Hovnanian Associates, which built Acqua Vista, Lennar Communities and Camden Development, that have built apartments and condos in the neighborhood since 2000.

While the change seemed sudden, it started with a small gesture that thrust a secret favorite of locals onto a larger stage.

In 1999, the Little Italy sign went up over India Street as the neighborhood announced itself to the world. Since then, the look of India and Kettner streets has changed from a commercial corridor to a charming group of shops, restaurants and galleries that force a passerby to linger.

LiMandri convinced Little Italy residents to assess themselves and fund the neighborhood association in 1997, and then went back for more a few years later. The association has been powerful and effective, convincing developers and donors to fund construction of four piazzas — so far.

“It’s amazing to see what the association has done in the last decade,” Haley says. “The incredible amount of work done really contributes to the fiber of the neighborhood. And the meetings are great because the established members are welcoming the new people and new ideas.”

The quick work to get the World Cup broadcast party in place was the epitome of a committed and effective neighborhood. “In a couple days — just a couple of days — they got permits to shut down India Street, got that huge screen, set up sound and security and vendors, and created this incredible small town atmosphere for the game,” Haley says.

In 2003, the association broke ground on Piazza Basilone, dedicated to the local boys who never came home from the wars of the 20th Century, LiMandri says. Named for Medal of Honor hero John Basilone, who died in World War II, it is one of the neighborhood’s four piazzas in four blocks along India Street.

Besides the art, trees and fountains, the lovely spaces are full of inviting places to sit and stroll — and that’s one of the most common pastimes in the neighborhood.

“I want people to walk down Little Italy streets and have every step be an experience,” LiMandri says. “We are doing things like hanging flower baskets and building piazzas so our neighborhood remains a place to stop and chat, to know your neighbors, to be glad you live here. Before we’re done, you’ll see chairs on every corner, you’ll see landscaping on every corner, you’ll see hanging plants on every corner. Every step we take, every idea we bring in is to make this more of a neighborhood.”

For more information on Li Mandre, see his Web site, http://www.newcityamerica.com.