Omar Blaik: Downtowns should be for everyone
Hello, Grant.
Grant Oliphant:Hi, Crystal. How are you doing?
Crystal Page:I'm good. How are you?
Grant Oliphant:I'm great. I'm really excited about this conversation today because we're gonna be talking with somebody who I've known for a lot of years and had the privilege to work with for a lot of those years, Omar Blaik.
Crystal Page:I am thrilled because I met Omar for a few minutes, and he told me you can actually design a city to ensure that it smells nice and it feels engaging. I'm sold.
Grant Oliphant:Yeah. And that sounds trivial, and it's huge. You know, one of the things that I strikes me about Omar, and it really comes out in this interview that we're about to have, is, he is an award winning thinker about the design of urban spaces for a very good reason, and it's because he's done the work of really thinking about what it takes for a city to design spaces that engage people and that are really open to and for everyone.
Crystal Page:And I'm really interested. I read his bio, and I see that he's originally from Cairo. Yeah. So the idea of having someone who's been both inside and outside in the region, in the community, in the country, I think it just brings a unique perspective. So I hope you all address that in your conversation.
Grant Oliphant:Yeah. Well, we will. And part of part of what he brings to, his work, and I think it's really important is being an immigrant and having grown up in an international city like Cairo, which is which is where he spent his youth, and having a sense for what the older cities do that works and and, makes for human interaction that is organic and exciting and lively and dynamic, all the stuff that we're that we want here in San Diego. So I think this is an exciting interview, and and one that will help us shed light on the conversation we're having in this town, about a couple of things. 1, of course, is the project that we've engaged Omar to work on through, our colleagues and friends at the San Diego Downtown Partnership, and that is the focus on what is called the Civic Center.
Grant Oliphant:The area, the 6 block area around city hall, that the city of San Diego has this unique opportunity to use as a showcase for what the future of downtowns ought to be about. So that's one thing that we're gonna explore. But more broadly, San Diego, of course, is looking at this whole question of what we want the future of the city to be, and how we can accommodate everybody who wants to be here, how we can design spaces that actually meet the needs of everybody who's here, and we're gonna get into all of that in this conversation.
Crystal Page:Well, I look forward to hearing about the future of San Diego.
Grant Oliphant:Let's dive in.
Crystal Page:Let's do it.
Grant Oliphant:Alright, Omar. It is so good to have you here.
Omar Blaik:It's terrific to be invited to speak with you.
Grant Oliphant:Well, you and I have known each other for a long time, and and we really got to know each other because we worked on the ground together in trying to help Pittsburgh get a very important civic site off the ground and back into productive use. But I wanna start here in San Diego, where you are now working with us at Prebys and with the city and with the downtown partnership in San Diego to figure out how to revitalize and rejuvenate and reimagine a core downtown site around city hall. And the reason this feels important aside from the fact that it's a really important site in San Diego is that every city in America is trying to figure out what to do with its downtowns right now and sort of rethinking what the possibilities are. And that's precisely the work that you do is work with communities to figure out how to use theirs their space and their place to make something distinctive that works for the community. So can we just talk for a minute about what attracted you to this opportunity in San Diego and why you found it important to say yes to.
Omar Blaik:Other than you?
Grant Oliphant:Well, you know, you can you can pay tribute that way later, but yes.
Omar Blaik:I mean, I mean, it's a great opportunity. It's exactly what you said, Grant. It sits at the intersection of every challenge, challenges that other cities are dealing with. And, my sense is that, there is something very unique here, in San Diego. You guys, you know, you are an amazing city, but still downtown is is, lacking.
Omar Blaik:And, how to solve that in a an overall environment that is not distressed. The overall environment of San Diego is is, you know, strong, and climate is good. Demographics are good, whereas most of the cities we are dealing with are actually shrinking cities and difficult cities in the Rust Belt and the like. So this is an opportunity where you are trying to solve a an interesting problem in a different type of, or different kind of space. So I always like to take challenges that I haven't, you know, solved in the past to kind of see how our thinking can change over time and be more impactful.
Grant Oliphant:It is, I think, easy for people taking a superficial look at a project like the Civic Center in Downtown San Diego, or the Hazelwood Green project that you helped us with in Pittsburgh, or the work that you've done in Downtown Detroit, or the work that you did originally back in Philadelphia that really got your career in this area started. It's easy for people to look at that and say well you know design is a nice luxury, but what we have to worry about is and then you'll get a list. And the list in San Diego might start, understandably with homelessness and housing. The list in Pittsburgh started with economic development. The list in Philadelphia, I believe, started with connection with community.
Grant Oliphant:You look at this through a very broad lens, this question of how the design of spaces and places actually helps a community achieve its goals. Why is it important?
Omar Blaik:It's actually fundamental to the way we live and the way we interact with each other. As we were walking here, I told you I feel we, as a as a country, may have a deficiency in empathy. And the reason why is that we actually live in places that are not inviting us to interact and to be together, but in fact, to be separated. We are separated by income, by type, by age, by race.
Omar Blaik:And design brings people together. The right the the right way to actually think of cities and city design. And, you know, I find it fascinating that we, as Americans, we go to Europe and to the Middle East and to elsewhere, and we are fascinated by cities, fascinated by you can sit and you can watch people walk around, and you can watch grand parents playing with their grandchildren. Yeah. But that's because, in fact, these are cities that are designed for everybody, not designed for a particular use and a particular, demographic.
Omar Blaik:And we tend here to think, you know, back in the days when cities, had the initial struggle after the the migration out, and the development of suburbs, well, we will bring stadiums in. We will bring casinos in. Then we will bring businesses in. And my sense is that you look at, at cities, from Cairo to Shanghai to London and Paris, these were not cities that were built 50 years ago. These are cities that are not struggling with identity. These are cities, no matter what the economic downturn, how bad it is, or the social, stress in a society, nobody asks the question, what is the role of London anymore? Or what's the role of Paris anymore? Or what's the role of Cairo? These are cities that are thriving in in the highs and in the lows.
Omar Blaik:Here, when we get a bad downturn of economy, suddenly downtowns do not have a meaning. Why? Because we have had focused on one use around downtowns. And we really need to bring back the idea that downtowns are really a microcosm of the community that we all live in.
Omar Blaik:It has everybody and not just one type of use.
Grant Oliphant:That's, that is a hugely powerful and beautiful answer, and I wanna hold that thought for a moment while we understand a little bit about how you got there. And you mentioned this international perspective that you bring to the work, in part, but only in parts because you are yourself an immigrant. You were born to Lebanese parents and raised in Cairo. You have you have seen the world through other places' eyes, and I'm just curious how that has affected your thinking about this work that you're now really concentrating on here and elsewhere around the US.
Omar Blaik:I would say affected it in a major way. I, as I see things as an outsider, so then I don't, I don't accept the status quo as, as acceptable. I ask the question. I tell you a quick story.
Omar Blaik:I came, took my job at Penn, as the senior vice president for facilities and real estate. And the first thing I realized is that, they were celebrating a chemistry professor winning the Nobel Prize with a banner that crosses crossed Walnut Street. And I went to- I'm trying to ask, how did we
Grant Oliphant:And just to anchor people, this is the University of Pennsylvania located in Philadelphia.
Omar Blaik:Yes. Located in Philadelphia. And I said, how are we why are we celebrating a Nobel Prize, winner with a banner that can go for a Target or a Walmart? Shouldn't we have a design sensibility to actually be a little bit more, sophisticated in our response to celebrating a professor like that?
Omar Blaik:This is just an example of how I just did not accept, the status quo. I remember I attended the first, graduation ceremony at Penn. And, again, totally lacked design. People are going into different places, dark and no TV. And again, I said, shouldn't we hire an architect and actually think of this as a theatrical, experience that should, should be well designed.
Omar Blaik:We actually ended up winning an award, a design award for, the graduation ceremony. But all of that to say that being foreigner, having seen cities elsewhere, I come to question, so why do we do it this way, and why do we act in that way? And I constantly reminded myself that America is a young country. We have lived in cities for a few 100 years. You know, when you compare other cultures and other places, they have been living in cities for 1000s of years.
Grant Oliphant:Right. Right.
Omar Blaik:And the idea of actually how to navigate the city and how to enjoy the city even though it is crowded and it could be noisy and all of the rest. But many cultures have figured out a way to actually mitigate all of that and live a very rich rich life. Here, we are still young, and we are getting more sophisticated around how we live in cities, but, it requires somebody to actually push back on the convention.
Grant Oliphant:Yeah. Well, I think one of the conventions that you pushed back on at the University of Pennsylvania, and you were working there under an iconic president, Judith Roden, who went on to head the Pew Trusts.
Omar Blaik:The Rockefeller Trust.
Grant Oliphant:I mean, Rockefeller. Yeah. Sorry. And an extraordinary leader, and you brought an extraordinary perspective, but one of the ways in which you became known on the national scene was working with her to open up the university to the community. I think up until that point, the university was notorious for building walls between itself and the surrounding community, and if you looked at the mindset of most people and universities and institutions in community settings, they were really trying to protect themselves from communities as opposed to relate with communities.
Grant Oliphant:What gave you and her the idea to to change in this way? Because it was a pretty bold idea at the time. In some ways, it remains a bold idea that connectivity is the thing that makes a city go.
Omar Blaik:I credit Judy, and and John Fry with the majority of how bold the idea was. I feel that I was lucky enough to actually be there as an instrument, truly translating their vision into reality on the ground. Judy had the draw of the luck to have been born in West Philadelphia and has experienced West Philadelphia before West Philadelphia and Penn were detached. And so she came as a president saying, you know, this is a very insular campus. This is not what we what we experienced when we were living here and when she went as a student, at the University of Pennsylvania.
Omar Blaik:And hence started a very big vision. I then became the architect of how to open that street, how to open the you know, I took every building, campus building, and put the main door on the on the public side rather than the loading dock. I kind of tweaked with every building to really open up the campus, and make it a a part of the fabric of the city. One of the things that were very minor in what I did, but I think it was symbolic, is that I forced the mail department to actually, assign, a wall you know, street addresses to all of our buildings because the Penn campus sat on an urban grid.
Grant Oliphant:Right.
Omar Blaik:And, your mail would come to the administration building, to college hall. No. Each each of these buildings actually has a street address. Right. And the idea was I wanted the Penn faculty and staff to constantly be reminded that they are part of the city.
Grant Oliphant:Yeah. And even so even a small what seems like a small thing like that can be highly symbolic.
Omar Blaik:Absolutely. Absolutely.
Grant Oliphant:So you helped transform the relationship of the university to the community, and it became, for those of us who followed design principles, with respect to urban urban's, environments and how we thought about cities, it became one of the, I think, best examples in the country for a different type of orientation towards city and community. And from there, it gave you an idea to start your own business called U3 Advisors, which is not just an urban design firm. How- what was your idea with U3, and how would you say it's evolved?
Omar Blaik:So it it has evolved quite a bit because we went through 2 recessions during, the past 17 years.
Grant Oliphant:YOu have to stay alive. Right.
Omar Blaik:17 years, I had to stay alive, in some, periods of time. I actually, in many ways, didn't want to start a consulting firm that does analysis, issue reports, and moves on.
Omar Blaik:I felt that what made it different at Penn was the impact we finally were able to achieve was the perseverance of actually turning the ideas into action. And you cannot do that in regular consulting work. So I kept trying to figure out how do you actually get paid, and in the same time, you stay the course to implement. And try trials and errors for a year before, before I was called upon by David Egner of Hudson Webber and Rip Rapson of, of Kresge who came to visit Penn, and they called me to meet with them.
Omar Blaik:We met in a Starbucks, before they departed Philadelphia to say, would you be interested in coming to Detroit? And it, in many ways, I said this is this is a huge challenge Mhmm. But in the same time, a gift because many people try to dismiss what happened at Penn being, Philadelphia is the 5th largest city. Mhmm.
Omar Blaik:And Penn is one of the most, well endowed private institutions. So you throw money at it and somehow you solve the problem. Going to Detroit, you are not in the largest in the- 5th largest city. It's a shrinking city. The mayor was, I believe, at that point in 2008, was in prison.
Grant Oliphant:Wildly different situation.
Omar Blaik:Yes. The auto industry was totally in shambles. And for and then we are working with public institutions, the, you know, Wayne State, and, Detroit Medical Center. It's not anymore the private elite. So I said if we can do it in Detroit, and if we can make an impact, we can really make an impact everywhere else.
Omar Blaik:So we we tried in Detroit, and we started with our vision of how to rethink the enterprise of universities and hospitals to impact their local community. And the more and we had a simple idea. The more the university means something to the community and the community means something to the university, the more their natural bond that will not really be separated. And, we were able to actually, through the work of Kresge Foundation and Hudson Webber, to stay the course and really turn around midtown, was amazing. And we continue to actually work in Detroit 16 years later.
Omar Blaik:And that almost put us on the national, radar screen because, again, Penn was dismissed as you throw money at it, you can you can make it work. And from there, went to Maryland and, and Newark and, eventually showed up at Pittsburgh.
Grant Oliphant:Right. Which I used to think of as the capstone of your career.
Omar Blaik:Yes.
Grant Oliphant:Now I think San Diego is that.
Grant Oliphant:You know, I think, what I what I hear in that brief history is the emphasis you place on connecting institutions with community and with place and restoring connectivity. What it brings up for me is that so much of urban design, at least in the 20th century, was about segregating and disconnecting. And lots of communities still live with the psychological and geographical and economic scars of that where poor communities were separated, traditionally Black communities were separated, you know, the whole history of Robert Moses' highway network, and the way in which it separated people into different communities and geographies, and also from nature in some extraordinary ways. So we will have we will have to understand and forgive many people who hear that you're from urban planning and are there to help for being a little suspicious. So How do you help people see that what you're really doing is something different?
Omar Blaik:So I'll tell you a Penn story, that, gives you a sense of how I have approached things, for the past 16 years. So at Penn, we were trying to, revitalize a commercial corridor that really was, filled with the worst uses that you can possibly think of at the doorsteps of the institution on fortieth Street. And I I asked why don't we actually have a community hall meeting and invite neighbors and businesses and just ask the question. Everybody was very timid. You are going without a plan.
Omar Blaik:I said, yeah. I mean, eventually I have trust that everybody wants the same thing. You know, they want clean and safe and thriving commercial corridor and the like. So we attended the meeting and about 100 people showed up. And I introduced myself and, you know, where we said, Penn is not going to force anything on anybody, but we want to know what you have, what you are aspiring for.
Omar Blaik:An African American woman, you know, asked to speak, she probably was in her eighties. And she then asked me a question that froze me. She said, mister Blaik, is Penn moving us again? And I had to think about why. I mean, I have not proposed anything, like that.
Omar Blaik:Turned out that I don't know how much you know the history of urban renewal around, West Philadelphia. Black Bottom was a working class, neighborhood on the northern edge of the Penn campus. Through urban renewal, people were moved, out by force, and compensated, minimally. And she eventually moved to a, senior housing that sits on 40th Street. So she was anxious that 40 years later, she was going to be moved again because Penn is planning something.
Grant Oliphant:And it's still alive in her memory. Of course.
Omar Blaik:Still alive. And I think I have aged about 10 years in that in that moment. But it gives me a it gave me a light bulb that said, cannot do anything without the people that surround you. Cannot force anybody to do anything.
Omar Blaik:At the end of the day, people by and large actually want almost the same thing. So if you be more if you lead with vulnerability and open up, it's not a point of weakness. It's actually going to make you stronger. And our and that approach we apply everywhere if an institution cannot succeed on its own. A city cannot succeed by separating different communities.
Omar Blaik:Every everybody needs to actually be part of what gets created and have a sense of ownership of it. And I think that's the that's maybe the key moment for me.
Grant Oliphant:So as you look at this project in San Diego, how do we avoid making that same mistake?
Omar Blaik:We we need to make the civic center meaningful to everybody, every community in San Diego, and not to a particular use or a particular type. And that requires a lot of engagement to actually translate what that meaning means. And, in in many ways, you we cannot make the same mistake again and replace one use with another single use.
Grant Oliphant:Right.
Omar Blaik:And, my my sense is that similar to many other downtowns that are struggling, we need to really bring rather than one large type of uses. We need to bring in smaller, more nimble, but diverse set of uses. In many ways, I always think, you know, great cities are not made of one great project, are made of many small great projects. And size matters, scale matter. And the idea is that if you can create a a diversity of uses that are connected to the community, at the larger community in San Diego, then the place will mean something.
Grant Oliphant:So let's let's deepen the conversation about the opportunity in San Diego, but sort of through the lens of how you do this well regardless of where you are. What you're talking about here is engaging the community in an open and authentic process, recognizing that the constituents for this part of a city are broad. You know? They're
Omar Blaik:Mhmm.
Grant Oliphant:They're and extensive. I love your notion of thinking about multiple uses and not one single great heroic project. Mhmm. I think that's important. When I look at this section of downtown, it sort of, for me, embodies a lot of the classic approaches of 50 years ago, 60 years ago to how you how you rejuvenated downtown.
Grant Oliphant:Mhmm. So they disconnected the urban grid, created a concrete plaza in the middle of And
Omar Blaik:elevated one.
Grant Oliphant:And elevated it, so took it away from the street. And the notion at the time I've gone back and read the the visioning documents and the reporting on it. The notion at the time was this would be an iconic symbol of what downtown was. What everybody forgot was it would also divorce that space from the streets. It would disconnect that space from the grid that surrounded it.
Grant Oliphant:Like so many other similar projects over time, you saw a degradation in use, an erosion of of, population around it, and ultimately to where we are. Oh, and making the iconic feature a parking lot. Yep. So no. Which is which is a mistake that's played out in so many communities.
Grant Oliphant:But how how, are you thinking about undoing those mistakes, or is that the approach you take as you think as you're helping a community think through a
Omar Blaik:project? So listening and actually better understanding the history of both the place and the people, as it interacts in that place is is is number 1. The second part is to actually look at where are the blocks that exist physically that disconnect people from the activity that's happening inside. City hall is not, very different than many universities and hospitals. The way they are designed, there is a vocabulary of separation and segregation.
Omar Blaik:You elevate, you create some platforms, you actually put the loading docks on the main street, and by doing that, you are, bottling all of the energy inside the the space. And, a good design really emanates that energy outside. And in emanating it outside, you are attracting authentic users coming in, and you create that energy that we are all looking for. So, the one of the main important things is to actually remove those disconnections and reconnect. Similar to what, what, you know, the Penn campus and and reconnecting it to the grid, we need to connect the site back to the grid. How and where exactly and what opportunities it provides for development, all of that needs to be studied. But it is obvious that the site has been designed to actually separate you from the rest of the city. And the outcome today could have been predicted long time ago because of the way it was designed.
Grant Oliphant:And yet we did that in community upon community upon community because it was the orthodoxy of the time. Yep. But you're right. If if we had thought through the power of connectivity, we wouldn't have done that.
Omar Blaik:Exactly.
Grant Oliphant:You know, I'm I'm going to say something, and I'll say it that maybe will get me in trouble, but I've said it in other places, so I I I think I just have to be honest about it. I came here from a town that struggled with the idea of thinking in in in greatness terms when thinking about design, because it had been through a the city had been through a near death experience. I'm talking about Pittsburgh now,
Grant Oliphant:and for the longest time, there was a mindset of we have to take what we can get. We have to be willing to- and yet there was a repeated willingness over time to rise above that. What the city was in constant tension over was this instinct to dumb things down and not really aspire versus this willingness to say, you know, we're gonna try and to do great things as a result. It's really how the entire waterfront of the city got reinvented.
Grant Oliphant:It was where the 2 renaissance of the city came from. Interestingly for me in San Diego, which is a wildly different economic place where land has value and there's momentum and energy, there's still the same human struggle between thinking that we have to take what we can get because a project may not fit in our psychology of where greatness can happen, and nonetheless wanting to do it. And what I found as we've taken on the civic center project is there's a thirst in this town for big ideas
Omar Blaik:Mhmm.
Grant Oliphant:And there's a fear about whether we can actually do them. How have you seen that play out in other communities, and how are you seeing it play out here?
Omar Blaik:It, I actually think it plays out almost in every, in every city where there is a sense that we are not good enough to actually do x or y. And, it requires leadership. I would say there are so many similarities between San Diego and Philadelphia. Philadelphia for, the longest time, kind of felt unseen between being between New York and Washington, DC. We, you know, we are not even on the main highway between the 2, the 2 big cities, center of government and center of finance.
Omar Blaik:And Philadelphia for decades, saw itself as a smaller, provincial type town. And you look at, Philadelphia today, it's a in a very different place. It's, the center of life science, and, eds and meds are are very, prominent. And it's one of the most livable cities, has the best food scene in, in, the country, and has probably some of the most diverse, housing stocks and housing typologies that allows to accommodate the younger families and the bachelors and the older folks. And it's a city that has transit, life.
Omar Blaik:And my sense is that San Diego has some of those complexities that, you know, that we are overshadowed by San Francisco and LA. But San Diego has amazing assets going for it. And, and it's not just the climate, and it's not just the, you know, the lifestyle. You know, you are next to a border that has the highest trade, traffic in, I believe, in the world, has amazing interchange of cultures between Mexico and here. You are sitting, on the doorsteps of amazing life science, you know, powerhouse in UCSD.
Omar Blaik:And all of that should actually give you the the confidence that downtown and the heart of downtown ought to really reflect the greatness of San Diego. And that's, I think, what we are hoping to achieve.
Grant Oliphant:Yeah. So when you think about this opportunity, and I love that answer because I believe the same thing myself, but when you think about the the opportunity that is represented by the Civic Center and the downtown project, what do you want San Diegans to believe about it? And how would you talk about it in other communities around the country that you how would you describe this as an opportunity for us?
Omar Blaik:I think that you can actually redefine what downtowns are, and and that can be a great service to many other cities across, the country that are reaching, you know, 40% vacancies in their commercials, office space and, major issues of homelessness and blight, in the core of their cities. So one, one, I think you have the opportunity to really redefine downtowns. And, and that's what attracted me to this opportunity and with the kindness of you calling me asking, would I be interested? And, of course I said yes. I think the the the other thing that, that we need to be thinking about is saying that a great mentor of mine and, somebody I I really, admire is Laurie Olin, the famous, landscape architect who, one time told me, you know, in in, Europe, cities build parks for the community around the parks.
Omar Blaik:And then everybody from the rest of the world come to visit those parks.
Grant Oliphant:Parks. Mhmm.
Omar Blaik:And then in America, we build parks for tourists. And nobody shows up. And I think in many ways, that's what we want to do here in downtown. We actually want to build downtown for us. Let's stop thinking we are building downtown core for the for the convention crowd or for the sports crowd or for the tourists that are coming through. No. We want to build downtown for us. And when we build downtown for us and it is beaming with the authenticity of the community, we will be an amazing destination.
Omar Blaik:And I think that's how you flip it.
Grant Oliphant:I just love that inversion of the usual or you know, the the usual way of thinking about it is define greatness based on what the rest of the world will wanna come and see. You're defining it based on what we will want to enjoy.
Omar Blaik:Yeah. What we have and what we want.
Grant Oliphant:So, in a way that that is the answer to the question I was about to ask you, but I still wanna ask you because I think there may be more there. You know, I wanna start by acknowledging the role of the mayor, Todd Gloria, and of the city in being willing to take on this broader view because the easiest thing for them to do as in so many other places would have been to just go out and sell a bunch of parcels and call it a a day. It is harder to sign up for the long term change project, that we that we're imagining here. So I'm grateful for that.
Grant Oliphant:And we don't wanna get ahead of that process, but are you already beginning to see principles coming out of the conversations that you're having with community and leaders in the community, that you think are going to be important for this project going forward?
Omar Blaik:I believe so. I actually think what I shared is not something that we just are advocating, but, actually what we are listening and hearing from, many different constituencies. And that, I think, is is very much, a sense of, oh, I think we are on on the right path. I believe the principles the main principles in my mind are, let's make the site reconnected back to the city.
Omar Blaik:Let's come up with multiple uses, that, that have a public meaning, not multiple uses where we are just building condominiums and office buildings. And, you know, it's almost like everything that gets built there needs to have a public purpose, whether it, whether the perimeter of that building is engaging the community, whether the uses inside are actually meaningful. And then you you want them to be meaningful to different constituencies, so then you can create the interaction between the diversity of who we are. So the the disconnection, you know, dealing with the disconnection, picking up the right uses, and then design. At the end of the day, redesigning the public realm is going to be fundamentally important.
Omar Blaik:And I think you then go out and engage the private sector with an idea in mind rather than go out and engage the private sector to just maximize, you know, income. And I think those are 2 very different, approaches.
Grant Oliphant:Yeah. In so many projects, what you hear though is if you add too much burden before you go out to the private sector, the private sector isn't going to take on the project because it will be too expensive or too hard or too burdensome. Why doesn't it scare you? And you've done this over and over again, and you've seen the opposite happen. Why doesn't it scare you, and why doesn't it scare developers in those cases?
Omar Blaik:Because I've seen it many times before. If you have a vision and you have leadership, you actually find the resources. I actually there is, a joke within the office that I came up with a formula that's called r equals v plus l.
Grant Oliphant:R equals v plus l.
Omar Blaik:Yes. And if you have the vision and the leadership, resources are going to show up. Mhmm. And, I believe that this is the the city needs to lead with ideas. And the ideas bring resources with them.
Omar Blaik:If the city lacks the ideas, then we are left to the private sector funding. And then as you said, it's a formula based, and there is, you need the project needs to pencil out at the end of the day. So but if you move forward with an idea, other resources actually can, can be surfaced.
Grant Oliphant:So this is a, both a a big site and a small site at the same time. It's big in the sense that it's multiple city blocks in the heart of downtown. It's small because the footprint of that is small compared to a lot of other scales of projects. And in the conversations that I've been present present for, I think the feedback from the community has been that we want to see housing on the site. We wanna see public spaces and amenities and parks on the site.
Grant Oliphant:We wanna see art, and we wanna see culture on the site. We want academic uses woven into it, and we want to meet the public infrastructure needs that exist. The need for the city to have a new administration building somewhere connected to this project. So a lot of expectations. Is it possible for a project like this to meet all of those expectations?
Omar Blaik:In the wider sense, yes. But in the specific on the footprint of the site probably no, because it's a small a smaller site. And the idea is that you need to actually keep enough of the uses that will transform the identity of that, precinct. And then hope that the other uses will start to get, sprinkled around, but not on the site.
Omar Blaik:Because the site is tight to actually have all of these, uses that we listen to and you heard as well. To be on the site. So I think, it is so important to decide what comes first because a project, a particular use, can in fact cascade other type of uses that are mentioned here all around us, and there is other uses that in fact will totally bottle up the energy again on the site, and we don't want to do that.
Grant Oliphant:Yeah. I really appreciate you're saying that because by restoring connectivity to the site, you can think more expansively about the site than just the footprint of the site. Let's talk a little bit about how this is going to work so people understand what it is that the the city has taken on. The city has has, through the Downtown Partnership, agreed to work with you to figure out how to get to a a vision that can then guide a... can then guide what? Why don't you describe what it is that's going to guide?
Omar Blaik:So if we are in a normal economic situation, If we are in a normal economic, situation, and we believe that the vision is well defined that what we would
Omar Blaik:approach, the client, the city here and and the downtown partnership, to actually go out to the prior to the market, with the vision, with the requirement of what are the public uses that we want to see on the site, and then engage the private sector in either a design competition or a set of, requests for interest as well as a request for proposals, eventually, and then you pick from from that. The the trick we we are struggling with is that the economics, conditions for development today are not ideal. So you want to be going out to the market at the right time. So we think there is quite a bit of work that can be, preparing the site, not only the vision and socializing the vision with all of the approval entities, but also getting the mechanism for how a development on a site like that can in fact take place.
Omar Blaik:Because not necessarily everything has to be done by the city. You can actually, have, have other, NGOs involved in in guiding, or providing that stewardship. But, we can provide a lot of that work waiting for the market to actually be ready for an engagement on an RFP process. So we that's where we are leaning towards, getting the vision clarified and defined and and socialized, and then getting the mechanism of execution approved. And then you go out to the market when the market is ready.
Grant Oliphant:And the RFP is a request for proposals where you actually look for people who are willing to sign up for some version of this vision.
Omar Blaik:And we believe that this is an RFP that we want to team developers with planners and architects so that actually there is some sort of a competition. That because, you know, we may get ideas that have not been, discussed before. So we and we want to elevate the element of design. So we want to pick teams, not just the developer.
Grant Oliphant:Oh, that's exciting. So teams who will represent both the capacity to deliver the project, but also the capacity to deliver on the vision.
Omar Blaik:Exactly. Yeah.
Grant Oliphant:Interesting. That's exciting. So given that community engagement is so central to how you're approaching this, I think where I wanna end this is to come back to that, that it's one of the first principles you stated in this conversation, the importance of talking with community in an authentic way. And I would say what you've been doing these last many months is nothing but talking with various stakeholders from leaders of large institutions to design organizations and interested stakeholders who believe that they have some kind of stake in what happens with downtown. Does that process abruptly end when you go into the RFP process, or does it continue somehow?
Omar Blaik:So I believe the engagement, are to be an ongoing process. So the the content of the engagement reflects the stage that you are in. In an RFP process, the engagement has to continue as it relates to reviewing the proposals, as it, as it relates to selecting the developer. My sense is that even when a developer gets selected, there needs to be a process where the developer now is engaging with, different stakeholders. So I would, advocate that this is a process that needs to to continue to be in place rather than just for a particular assignment.
Grant Oliphant:Well, Omar, unfortunately, our time has run out, but I have to say, it is a joy to get to work with you again on a project like this. And I I believe what you said, which is that San Diego has a huge opportunity here, not only to deliver on a great project for itself, but to do so in a way that other communities will wanna pay attention to and learn from, and, you know, may we be successful in
Omar Blaik:May we be successful. Well, the honors are are mine, and the privilege is mine, Grant to have been, contacted by you and the Prebys Foundation. And, you know, met when we met with the mayor, amazing amazing leadership that we have here. I really think we have a great opportunity, to to succeed.
Grant Oliphant:Alright. From your lips to God's ears, we'll leave it at that. Omar Blaik, thank you so much.
Omar Blaik:Thank you. Thank you so much, Grant.
Crystal Page:That was such an eclectic conversation. I loved it.
Grant Oliphant:Eclectic might be the perfect word for it. If you think about it, cities are eclectic. Right? They're they're meeting places for people butting up against each other who may not necessarily organically always end up in the same spot. But, you know, we live in this in this space, we work in this space, we have people visiting in this space, go to school, and all of that has to be accommodated by the same space.
Grant Oliphant:And I just loved talking to Omar about what it looks like for a city to make all of that work.
Crystal Page:Yes. And I hadn't thought about how the current design may or may not feel welcoming. Right? The way the that city hall has these steps up. It kinda separates it from the rest of the street.
Crystal Page:And now that I think about it, I was like, oh, yeah. It doesn't have a flow that makes me wanna walk into it and engage and be curious. And so, I really appreciated his thoughts and his approach on, what is friendly and welcoming design in 2024.
Grant Oliphant:Yeah. Well, your your use of the word flow actually grabs me because I actually think that's the secret here. You know, there was a period in American architecture and design, and urban thinking that was all about breaking up spaces, and I think our city hall complex, the Civic Center, in some ways embodies that. It's yeah the steps that create a discontinuity with the street, the breaking up of the street grid so that traffic didn't flow through anymore, really creating ramps that divide the sidewalk from the experience that's happening at the center, creating blank walls so pedestrians are disconnected from the space. It ends up being disconnected all the way around.
Grant Oliphant:And I remember looking at, at photographs and drawings of the space when it was being conceived and being sold to the public you know, 60 years ago. And, it really looks beautiful in the drawings, and and it's actually maybe one of the warnings about how we think about spaces. What people really want, and I think Omar drew attention to this, is they want flow. You know, they want to be able to move from one space to the other. They wanna be able to see where they're going.
Grant Oliphant:They wanna be able to walk into an area and feel like it's welcoming regardless of who they are. And I just I really appreciated Omar's perspective on that.
Crystal Page:Yeah. Now that you're saying that, I'm imagining, like, where we are in Little Italy. Right? You can see down the road when there's the farmer's market, or you see down to the water. And so I think it's a huge opportunity for San Diego, assuming, you know, the mayor and the council members and everyone likes, whatever Downtown Partnership and U3 develops.
Crystal Page:I think there's such an opportunity there to make every make that 6th parcel feel like downtown the rest of downtown does. Right? Like Comic Con. You're turning corners. You're seeing the wraps from this year's 2024 Comic Con, and it's exciting and engaging, and I hope we continue with that spirit.
Grant Oliphant:Yeah. Well, I think we will. You know, first of all, I it says a lot about San Diego and the mayor that, the city has been willing to embark on this process. And just ask the question, what is downtown for? How can we take these 6 blocks and turn them into more than the sum of their proverbial parts, and and really try and make it part of the urban fabric again, and make it add to San Diego.
Grant Oliphant:You know, if you think about what people love here, and I've asked that question of so many folks in my early time here in in the city, the the answers are all over the lot. Some people like the ocean, and some people like the desert, and some but what they regardless of what what attributes they point to, they all love the opportunity that the city affords to connect with all of those spaces and with and to connect in an easy way with opportunities for art, for culture, for nature, for beauty, for the things that they appreciate. And, I think I think this package of land can be a real opportunity for San Diego to help the rest of the country answer a question that we're all everybody's grappling with, which is what's the next thing we can do to make cities even better and more lively, and to keep downtowns an important part of the American fabric the way that they have been. You know, and what I would also point out is downtowns go through ups and downs always. There are ebbs and flows to what how people engage with downtowns, and partly it's because of changing tastes, partly it's because of lessons that we needed to learn about how to design those spaces.
Grant Oliphant:And we're going through one of those changes now, and this is a golden opportunity to design a city that we are really proud of, and that people will look back 50 years from now and say, wow. They really got that right. As I'm sure they will about so many other things that exist in the city now, like starting with Balboa Park.
Crystal Page:Oh, yeah. Balboa Park, The Shell, Petco Park is truly world class, all these things. So I think you're a 100% right in you know, we want folks to look back and feel proud. That's not to say we're not already awesome because San Diego is an awesome city.
Grant Oliphant:Yeah. I mean, I think part of it is you're building on strengths.
Crystal Page:Exactly. And I think, you know, I just came back from a Comic Con, so walking down the gas lamp quarter, just to you know, I don't know how it all gets done, but to feel curious about these buildings, like you said, the art having the murals, or I think Omar mentioned at some point the, multi use spaces where maybe there's a vendor who's there or a a renter or something. All those things will diversify and and make spaces more engaging.
Grant Oliphant:You know, I think spaces that perform functions, that appeal to people on multiple levels, that's really important. And I yeah. You really get, I was I missed this year's Comic Con, as you know, but I think what is magical when you're in the city for an event like that, and and it's just a singular kind of event for San Diego to host. But part of what's magical is you see people interacting with the city, and they're they're obviously engaging with, the park, with Balboa Park, they're engaging with the cultural district, they're engaging with the museum, they're engaging with the convention center, they they walk to the waterfront, they walk into the gas lamp quarter, they walk into Little Italy. There's just so much to experience, and how we continue to build on that is actually an important question for this generation.
Grant Oliphant:You know, we tend to think that cities happen by accident, but they're actually a series of consequential decisions that happen over time, and the great cities make those decisions in a really thoughtful and and deliberate way, and they think about what it is that people really need from a city, which by the way is kind of different than where we were 50 or 60 years ago when it was really about what architects wanted, or what designers thought was important. One of the lessons we've learned is you gotta ask people, you've gotta engage community, and you've gotta learn from them about what it is they aspire to in a community, and then you start designing really great spaces and places. And San Diego deserves it has it has many and it deserves more, and we're in the process now of making decisions that will shape the future of this city and how it's perceived. So we should do it with some real creativity and responsibility.
Crystal Page:And, Grant, you and Omar, in the conversation, discussed different regions he's worked in, different cities, and I know you all mentioned working together in Pittsburgh. So can you talk about what the development of of that downtown, what what role he played there, and and and what you took away from that?
Grant Oliphant:Yeah. Well so that project, which was known as Hazelwood Green, was basically the redemption of a 170 Acre site that was a former steel mill that had been closed obviously, and then torn down. An amazing open space in the city on the riverfront in kind of a neighborhood that was still struggling, but nonetheless a beautiful old neighborhood that sat just downhill from the major university center in Pittsburgh. So it was a it was a pretty special place, but in a town where not a lot of development has happened, not like it happens in San Diego. And to give you an idea of how stark the difference is, in Pittsburgh, the idea that land like that would have value is simply not the case.
Grant Oliphant:You know? The land, almost has to be contributed to help it be developed in a way. Whereas in San Diego, land has enormous value, and, for people in San Diego it's probably impossible to conceive of that environment, but for much of America, particularly in the middle of the country, that's often what you encounter is a real challenge to development that starts with what is the value of the land itself. And what Omar did with us was figure out how to come up with a vision for the use of that land that would connect with developers and create an incentive for partners to wanna come to the table and develop that project. And, the Heinz Endowments, which I was working with alongside with, Richard King Mellon Foundation and, and, the Benedum Foundation in Pittsburgh jointly figured this figured this out, and the project is now well underway.
Grant Oliphant:And it's exciting because it's turning what used to be a symbol of old, the old economy, into a symbol of a vibrant new city and a vibrant new economy. In a in a way every project is like that. The dynamics may be different, but what Omar understands, and I think he spoke to this, is every time we go into one of these projects we're thinking through the story that you're telling about the city that you're in. And the story I know that the downtown partnership wants to tell and the mayor wants to tell and we certainly wanna tell is the story of a dynamic city that values everyone, but also cares about, really good design, connection with art, connection with nature, and inspiring places.
Crystal Page:Well and what's striking to me, right, even though the land is not valued was not valued the same there, I do think it sounds like you had to build kind of the coalition of the willing. Right? We know here, sometimes there's the doom loop of we can't have nice things, but we can. Yeah. So I'm just really curious in terms of, did you watch people through that process, like, get more excited and on board with this idea?
Crystal Page:What did that look and feel like?
Grant Oliphant:You know the start of any I I think this is true everywhere. The start of any visioning process is people asking, well, what makes you think that we could do that? Or what makes you believe that we could aspire to something different than what, you know, what we have, or, who appointed you to lead that? And that's just in the nature of leadership, and I think in every case where change happens, somebody steps forward and helps start the conversation and put some resources on the table, and then, yes, others step in, and if the if the vision is exciting, then what you see is more and more owners of that process taking it over. I think we can do the I think we we we're already experiencing the same thing here.
Grant Oliphant:There are so many people in San Diego actually, we're way ahead of the game because there are so many people in San Diego who wanna see this project be great, and who are really thirsting for an opportunity to prove that we can do something exceptional in this space. I am so jazzed about the possibilities there, especially because we're working with somebody like Omar who gets it and can help the city and and all of us figure out what the art of the possible is in our downtown.
Crystal Page:Well and what you said that just stood out to me, I think it, calls back to your conversation with Omar where he really talked about if there's leadership and or vision, resources will follow that, and I I hope I think that's what we're seeing here. Right? There's there's a hope. There's a vision. It's getting refined and, hopefully, it's like field of dreams.
Crystal Page:If you build it, they will come, you know?
Grant Oliphant:Yeah. Well, and I think the beauty of that statement, you know, if you build it, they will come is when you oftentimes when you start at the front end with an idea for a really beautiful inspiring goal, people really are skeptical, but they very quickly when they realize you're serious, they very quickly get excited about it and then they start adding to it. That's the point where you really know it's taken hold because others are are contributing to it.
Crystal Page:You're right. Because as soon as we announced, the grant that was being made to downtown partnership for this development, I received several calls from theater folks who were like, we are so excited that you care about the space and the possibility of protecting the civic theater.
Grant Oliphant:Yeah.
Crystal Page:You know? And it just reminded me how much these locations mean to people their own memories Right. Their own experience of the culture locally.
Grant Oliphant:Yeah. And and I think that, by the way, is a wonderful place to end because the role of art and culture in a city, the importance of it cannot be overstated, and I just so appreciate that one of the themes that is coming up over and over again in our conversations with people is the importance of having art downtown and how much they appreciate and value the Civic Theatre and how much they appreciate the role of art in their city, it's exciting and I think we're we're really embarked on an exciting time in San Diego, and I appreciate Omar's helping us tee up the conversation.
Crystal Page:Me too. Here's to the future of our city.
Grant Oliphant:Alright. Thanks so much.
Crystal Page:Thank you.
Grant Oliphant:This is a production of the Prebys Foundation, hosted by Grant Oliphant, and co hosted by Crystal Page. The program is co produced by Crystal Page and Adam Greenfield, and it's engineered by Adam Greenfield. Production assistance is provided by Tess Kresge, and our new theme song is by mister Lyrical Groove, a local San Diego artist. Download episodes at your favorite podcatcher or visit us at stop and talk podcast.org. If you like this show, and we really hope you do, the best way to support it is to share, subscribe, and review our podcast.
Grant Oliphant:Thank you for your support, your ideas, and most of all, for listening. This program has been recorded at The Voice of San Diego Podcast Studio.
