Art Pulse would buy prime Encinitas land for $7.5 million

ENCINITAS — A former elementary school on prime coastal property in Encinitas could be rebuilt into an arts and performance center.

The Encinitas Union School District board of trustees voted 4-1 this week to enter into negotiations with the nonprofit Art Pulse. The organization is proposing to buy the land from the district for $7.5 million to turn it into an arts center. The two sides will negotiate toward a March 2 deadline to finalize a deal.

The district has been trying to capitalize on the former site of Pacific View Elementary since the school closed in 2003 due to declining enrollment. Years of past redevelopment proposals have failed, and the district is now suing the city of Encinitas for twice denying to rezone the 2.8-acre parcel for residential development. The lawsuit would be dropped if Art Pulse and the district reach a deal.

The district rejected three other proposals for the land and a fifth withdrew.

Art Pulse would tear down Pacific View but retain an 1883 historic school on the property. It would build classrooms, an open-air amphitheater, industrial art space and underground parking, said April Game, the organization’s executive director. Renowned architect James Hubbell and his son, Drew, would design the center.

Encinitas Union Superintendent Tim Baird said he thought the situation could turn out great for the district’s goal of capitalizing on the property while also retaining the space as a community asset.

Pacific View, built in 1953, is in downtown Encinitas, about a block from the ocean. A prerecession estimate of the land was $13 million, and Baird has said the district aims to maximize profits to use toward education. Like most districts in the state, Encinitas Union has seen its budget reduced. The district cut its budget by $3 million this school year and could face an additional $5 million cut next year, Baird said.

Art Pulse, based at Liberty Station, has $4 million in hand and would make a $400,000 nonrefundable deposit should negotiations succeed, Baird said. Game said she has six donors who have pledged a minimum $300,000 to $500,000 each to help build the center. The organization would fundraise to help pay for the purchase and development of the center, she said.

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/feb/18/tp-arts-group-sets-its-sights-on-old-pacific-view/

Join SDAFon 2.2.12 for some food, drink, art, and of course some 20×20 presentations at PechaKucha Night SD V14 at the Mingei International Museum.

http://sdarchitecture.org/event/2012/01-20/pechakucha-night-san-diego-volume-14

Rain Barrel Rebates for City of San Diego customers are here! The program started January 15th, and there are limited funds, so act fast. The more demand we show for rebates, even if they run out, the more likely this program will take off as a more substantial offering for the Water Conservation Department. If you have a barrel/tank purchased after January 1st, the Public Utilities Department will rebate $0.50/gallon up to 400 gallons or $200! See the following link for details and to get an application:

http://www.sandiego.gov/water/conservation/resrainwaterharvesting.shtml

If you are thinking of getting a tank soon to take advantage of this great opportunity, check out The Tank Source, in Alpine, our local Tank Supplier. You won’t find better prices:

http://www.thetankssource.com/sandiegotank/

Also, if you need help getting started, Brook Sarson offers consultations as well as installations for rainwater tanks as well as greywater systems.

You can visit her website at http://h2o-me.com/.

-Brook Sarson

Planning Grants Announced

Open Spaces Sacred Places: The Healing Power of Nature, National Awards Program for Integrated Research and Design Projects, announces the selection of $500,000 in planning grants to 11 cross-disciplinary teams funded through the TKF Foundation.

The planning grant awardees exhibit the potential to generate more complete knowledge about the benefits and impacts that result from user experiences of nature-based sacred spaces in cities. Selected projects embody the potential to be replicable in their intent, and generalizable in the challenges they address, to serve as possible archetypes for the design of urban areas across the U.S.

The eleven teams are:

From Afar: Garden of Transitions, Utica, NY  Mohawk Valley Resource Center for Refugees

The Green Road, Bethesda, MD Walter Reed National Military Medical Center

Intergenerational/Multicultural Community Garden, Malden, MA City of Malden Redevelopment Authority

Landscapes of Resilience: Understanding the creation and stewardship of Open Spaces Sacred Places, Joplin, MO & Detroit, MI Cornell University Civic Ecology Lab

Mechanisms of Nature Restoration, Washington, DC & Baltimore, MD Metro Areas Rotman Research Institute

Naval Hospital Cemetery Memorial Landscape, Brooklyn, NY Brooklyn Greenway Initiative

An Open Space Sacred Place for Life Enhancement, Tucson, AZ & Bronx, NY Canyon Ranch Institute

Reflections: People on the Waterfront, Seattle, WA Pomegranate Center

The Space Within, San Diego, CA Groundwork San Diego-Chollas Creek

Therapeutic Healing Garden, Portland, OR Emanuel Medical Center Foundation

Waukegan Area Sacred Spaces, Waukegan, IL Parkland College

For more information and a full listing of grantee team members, please visit:

http://www.opensacred.org/grants/planning-grant-awardees

Final Request for Proposals:

The final phase of the Open Spaces Sacred Places National Awards Program for Integrated Research and Design Projects’ Request for Proposals will be released February 1, 2012. The program was enacted in 2 phases, a Planning Grant Phase, now closed, followed by an open call for proposals. Final Awards will fund significant new sacred public green spaces that demonstrate a combination of high quality design-build and rigorous research about user impacts. The total funding pool available is $4 million. Funding will be provided to cross-disciplinary teams that are able to 1) conceptualize, plan, design and implement an open and sacred green space, 2) conduct associated research study(ies), and 3) communicate scientific findings.

Note: A prior planning grant award is not a criterion for eligibility to apply for the final funding phase of the National Awards, nor will planning grant recipients be automatically favored in the National Awards review process. The Awards Program is open to any project proposal that meets the eligibility criteria as specified in the request for proposals to be released 2/1/12.

Connections

‘The garden is beautiful; it has come so alive with life – flowers blooming, birds singing, sun shimmering, and the little stream running through. What more do we want or need? Nothing – this is the sustenance of the human spirit.’

Journal entry from the Open Spaces Sacred Places bench at the Anne Arundel Medical Center.

This holiday season, help build us up. Literally.

 Donate. Every Cent Counts. (Click here)

With only 15 full-time staff, we remain a small organization, and one that continues to greatly impact our world. How, you ask? Working in partnership with Uganda Wildlife Authority, our mobile gorilla hospital tends to half the world’s population of the incredible Mountain Gorilla. We are the authority on gorilla health research in East Africa. And for many locals we are their only path to empowerment through basic health services and education initiatives. We accomplish incredible feats because we believe in what we do – seeing and living our work in the field everyday.

But with all the need for our work, we have outgrown our tiny headquarters in Buhoma village. The one-room wooden structure that has served as the hub for our research and health initiatives for the past five years no longer provides a suitable home for our organization.

So, when the ECOLIFE Foundation and Hubbell & Hubbell Architects offered to help design our dream – again we, quite literally – exclaimed “yessssss!” With the help of The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Steven and Florence Goldby, and The Africa Adventure Company, we purchased land overlooking Bwindi Impenetrable Rainforest, home to our gorilla friends.

Through an integrative approach, the CTPH Gorilla Health Centerwill advance discovery, research and understanding of gorilla preservation and human health on local and global levels. Now it’s imperative to raise funds to build the CTPH Gorilla Health Center. This “green” site will appear to “grow out of the land” rather than sit on top of it. Quite appropriate, as every layer of CTPH is built on the principle of interconnectedness between people and wildlife through the “One Health” concept.

Learn more about CTPH Gorilla Health Center here.

The CTPH Gorilla Health Center costs 100,000 USD to build alone. Add the laboratory costs, and we are up to 200,000 USD. We need your help to make this dream a reality.

To help build this extraordinary project, please click here.

Warmly,

Dr. Gladys and the CTPH Team

* Top image: Sketch of the plans for the CTPH Gorilla Health Center.

The Article below featuring Briercrest Park was featured in the San Diego Union-Tribune on Nov. 10, 2011 and can be visited at signonsandiego.com…

Modern San Diego, founded in the 19th century by Midwesterners accustomed to green lawns and lots of rain, is facing the 21st century with a new water-saving ethic — and local landscape architects are showing the way.

Fresh from hosting their annual convention at the San Diego Convention Center last week, the designers of parks, commercial campuses, residential yards and natural open space retreats offer a new paradigm for the land beyond the four walls of where we live and work.

“It is not uncommon to find a cultural and often fanatical love affair with turf grass, which is typically a fast and easy way to achieve the look of a lush landscape,” said landscape architect Glen Schmidt, San Diego’s trustee on the ASLA national board. “However, I feel that we have been borrowing our landscape character from other regions of the world for far too long, and that it is time to create a ‘San Diego Style’ of landscape that can offer a unique sense of place while still looking lush and beautiful.”

Like early adopters of the latest electronic gadget, some San Diego homeowners and commercial property owners have already made the switch from water-hogging grass to a xeriscaped plant palette that not only uses less water but requires less fertilizer and maintenance as well.

“These landscapes are richer, they have more color, more change in the seasons,” Schmidt said. “They’ll attract birds and wildlife. They are much richer in what they offer in experience, and quality of life for folks that live here.”

At the 8.5-acre Sony Electronics U.S. headquarters in Rancho Bernardo, the feeling of an office park is radically different from the typical lawn surrounding other commercial campuses in the suburbs.

There’s a one-acre garden between the 11-story office tower and parking garage. A man-made creek, or bioswale, running through the property gathers water into one channel rather than sending it into the city’s stormwater system. The water from the building air conditioning system gets recycled into the garden’s fountain, necessitating very little additional water use.

By contrast, said Gregory N. Aveni, Sony’s director of facilities, the company’s offices across the street at the Rancho Bernardo Corporate Center sit on a 105-acre campus where water costs run three to four times more per acre.

“We’re looking to phase in drought-tolerant landscaping,” he said of that older campus.

The same cost-benefit ratio thinking goes into many homeowner and business decisions about what to do about rising water and maintenance costs. Schmidt said the return on investment can sometimes be recouped in as quickly as five years. In other cases, it can take 50 years to cover the transition costs.

But in a global-warming world, landscape architects think they can lead the way to a more sustainable future and not lose beauty for the sake of saving water.

“Landscape architecture is rising — the knowledge, vision, leadership, how much impact we’re having on the world,” he said.

Quoting New Urbanism architect Andres Duany, Schmidt said the idea is catching on that while it might have been cool to be a star architect in recent decades, landscape architects are getting more attention and credit as they plan whole environments in which the buildings are just one component.

roger.showley@uniontrib.com; (619) 293-1286; Twitter: rmshowley; Facebook: SDUTshowley

Farrar PV-powered Nissan leaf

Dear Friends and Family,

Ready or not, we have finally moved into the Farrar Green Home!

We love our new house and green lifestyle. We especially love being able to turn on the air conditioning, music, lights, and sprinklers from our iPhone or iPads. I am loving driving my zippy new Nissan Leaf for FREE! It is my best car ever!

Our solar PV panels power the whole house, the well, the pool, and my car, with power to spare. We received our first SDG&E bill and our usage was a -647 kwh and a $90 credit towards our monthly electric connection bill of $5/month.

Go Green!

Rhonda & Nigel Farrar

PS. We have posted recent photos on the Farrar Green Home website if you would like to check it out.

Rhonda

Rhonda Farrar
www.FarrarGreenHome.org

Old Town Academy K-8 School is a free California public charter school that will have one classroom in each grade, with 28 students per grade.

Hubbell & Hubbell Architects and JMR Construction worked on an accelerated schedule to prepare the tenant improvement drawings and build-out for the adaptive reuse of the eastern building of the old Thomas Jefferson School of Law campus.

On June 17, the San Diego Daily Transcript featured a nice profile of the school’s founder, Christopher Celentino, in an article by Doug Sherwin titled, “Duane Morris attorney trying to change landscape of education.”

A pdf copy of the article is available here: Duane Morris attorney trying to change landscape of education