‘I wouldn’t count on that.’ Airport people mover from port site unlikely

Once heralded as a property that could link public transit to San Diego’s airport by way of an automated people mover, the Port of San Diego’s headquarters just opposite the tarmac now seems like a distant possibility.

The change in direction, communicated subtly through various actions taken by the San Diego Association Governments since last July, became more apparent two weeks ago.

That’s when the Port’s board discussed at a high level the potential redevelopment of its Port Administration Building at 3165 Pacific Highway as part of a larger plan to upgrade all of its office buildings.

Job Nelson, who is the Port’s vice president of strategy and policy, told commissioners at the Aug. 13 board meeting that they should not let SANDAG’s nebulous plans for an airport transit connection put off their own planning efforts.

“I will just say, given the recent changes at SANDAG and the difficulty they’re having working their way through some of that, I wouldn’t count on that as being a potential solution,” Nelson said.

The executive, responding to a question from Board Chair Frank Urtasun, threw cold water on the 2-year-old people mover concept envisioned to travel between the airport, the Port property and the airport car rental facility.

The Port site concept is just one of many potential transit connections to the airport currently being analyzed by SANDAG, which is the county’s lead transportation agency and manages planning efforts for the region. A SANDAG spokesperson said the agency has not eliminated the Port site from consideration.

“SANDAG continues to study various transit connection options listed in its Airport Transit Connection project,” the spokesperson said. “The automated people mover, trolley extension and enhanced bus service are all being considered.”

Under the leadership of former CEO Hasan Ikhrata, SANDAG has been the driving force behind a renewed push to connect the region’s public transit system to the San Diego airport.

The effort, which dates to December 2018, has morphed considerably over the years.

SANDAG and the Navy were originally aligned on building an all-encompassing central mobility hub at the Naval Base Point Loma Old Town Campus. In April 2022, the Grand Central plan was formally scuttled in favor of starting with a $4 billion, two-pronged automated people mover system branching north from the airport to the Port site and south to Santa Fe Depot in downtown San Diego.

At the time, the Port’s 13-acre property at 3165 Pacific Highway, home to the government agency’s seven-story administrative office building, was seen as an ideal location for a transit center with a people mover. The site is close to the airport, across the street from the new car rental facility, just west of Interstate 5 and a half block away from the Middletown trolley station.

The Port embraced the plan, which was hatched with help from the Port’s then-CEO Joe Stuyvesant. The agency made legal space for the project by walking away from talks with the developer proposing a budget hotel on the site. And, earlier in 2022, former Commissioner Jennifer LeSar resigned from her board seat to avoid a conflict of interest because of her work with SANDAG.

But by July 2023, the Port site concept seemed to take a back seat to a south-route-only people mover option from the airport to Santa Fe Depot and potentially terminating in downtown’s Civic Core or at the San Diego Convention Center. SANDAG staffers told board members that after reviewing seven people mover, trolley extension and bus concepts — with as many as 18 different permutations — the Santa Fe Depot, south-leg-only concept, costing around $2 billion, offered the best balance of price and benefit.

The agency appeared to be charging toward an environmental review of the concepts. Six months later the strategy flipped.

In February, at the direction of interim CEO Coleen Clementson, SANDAG staff said they needed to redo the analysis of all of the modes and routes, in house, with more recent data before starting state and federal environmental review processes. Staff said they would return to the board with a recommendation for a preferred option by the fall of 2025.

SANDAG is now under new management. California Department of Transportation alum Mario Orso took the helm as SANDAG’s executive director in June. Clementson resigned. The agency’s chief economist, Ray Major, was fired at the end of the month.

Port and SANDAG staff most recently met to discuss the airport transit connection project on July 10, a Port spokesperson said.

On Aug. 13, Nelson, the Port executive, suggested to board members that the executive suite shakeup may have also shifted the transportation agency’s priorities.

“I think that they’ve gone back to the drawing board under new leadership,” Nelson told the Port commissioners. “So it may get revisited at some point in time, in terms of a people mover and needing some of this (Port) property and things along those lines. But I think that that’s going to be a multi-year process and who knows what’s going to come of it.”

The SANDAG spokesperson said that the timeline for the airport transit connection project laid out in February remains in tact. The agency expects to begin the environmental process for the preferred concept in late 2025, the agency spokesperson said.

The Port, meanwhile, is embarking on a planning effort to either renovate, redevelop or consolidate four office properties, including the Pacific Highway headquarters, which staff said requires $16 million in major renovations.

The agency’s board agreed at its most recent meeting that the most pressing need is for a replacement of the 76-year-old Harbor Police Department headquarters on North Harbor Drive, but that redevelopment or lease options should be looked at in concert with the other office buildings.