Don’t Park in the Green Zone? Do SoCal’s waterfront developments have enough open space?

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA — Anyone who has read The Log these past, oh, four-plus years has certainly noticed the amount of coverage we give to the various waterfront development proposals dotting the Southern California coast. Time-killing revitalization efforts in Dana Point, NIMBY clashes at Redondo Beach’s King Harbor and a grandiose plan to build a Space Needle-like structure on the Downtown San Diego Embarcadero are among the many waterfront projects we’ve reported on extensively. Each revitalization, be it in San Diego, Dana Point, Long Beach, San Pedro, Redondo Beach or Marina del Rey, maintains a common thread: Rebuild the local waterfront with a myriad of visitor-serving amenities and the public will come – basically a re-twist of the “If you build it, he will come” line from “Field of Dreams.” These visitor-serving amenities, of course, are restaurants, boutique shops, markets, hip office spaces and any combination of tourist attractions (such as aquariums or 500-foot high observation decks). It makes sense for developers to highlight these amenities, since restaurants, shops, markets, office spaces and tourist attractions equate to revenue – this, ultimately, is how developers will earn a return on their multimillion-dollar (and, sometimes, billion-dollar) investment. Lost in all the noise, though, are offerings of...