Daily Business Report-July 3, 2013
A new look for Lindbergh Field
Local Businesses Share $415 Million from
Airport Green Build Contracts
The Green Build, a $1 billion makeover of Lindbergh Field, has put $415 million into the hands of local businesses who won contracts for work on the project, according to the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority. The agency said small businesses shared $118 million of the total number of contracts awarded. Close to 8,000 workers had a role in the project. At peak construction, there were 1,000 construction workers on site on any given day.
“We’re so proud that our small business outreach efforts successfully fed millions of dollars back into San Diego’s economy,” said Thella F. Bowens, president and CEO of the Airport Authority. “The Airport Authority Board has made a strong commitment to supporting small and local businesses, and we will continue to build on these efforts as we move forward with other construction projects.”
Mayor Announces More Savings on
Leasing Downtown Office Space
Mayor Bob Filner is boasting that another lease agreement on office space for city workers will save the city millions of dollars. The new lease is at The Executive Complex, 1010 Second Ave. Filner said it will save taxpayers $4.84 million over six years. “This is a significant savings for the taxpayers and a direct result of rethinking the way the city uses office space Downtown,” Filner said. “I am looking creatively at our Downtown leases in order to save taxpayer dollars, which can now go toward needed services such as street repairs, public safety and water lines.” The new deal was negotiated by Jason Hughes, who was recently appointed by the mayor as an unpaid special adviser on Downtown real estate. Filner said Hughes look at how all the city leases relate to each other and what would be the best thing to do to consolidate them over time.
Key points of the deal at 1010 Second Ave. include:
• $1.17 per square foot versus the current $1.74 per square foot.
• The lease includes a 3 percent increase per year for the six-year lease with the final rate of $1.36 per square foot still significantly lower than the current rate.
In Memorium: Henry Janssen
The emeritus professor of political science taught
and mentored at San Diego State for 60 years
A colleague from San Diego State University described Emeritus Professor Henry Janssen as the embodiment of Michelangelo’s phrase ancora imparo, “I am still learning.” After more than six decades of teaching students to revere learning — and earning widespread acclaim for his skill — Janssen himself continued to be a practitioner of the art until his death in San Diego last week at age 92. “I have a host of friends that were once my students, going all the way back to 1953,” Janssen said in an April 2013 interview. “In one way or another, and probably not always with intention, they have created me. I learned from them and hopefully was able to transfer that learning to students who came after them.” Janssen taught political science at SDSU for more than 35 years, and later continued to mentor students as adviser to the Honors Council. The council is comprised of students accepted into five of SDSU’s six campuswide, multidisciplinary honor societies (Phi Eta Sigma, Golden Key, Phi Kappa Phi, Mortar Board, Phi Beta Kappa and Scholars Without Borders). “Henry is the main reason I’m now studying at M.I.T.,” said Levi Lentz, an SDSU honors graduate and 2012 valedictorian for the College of Engineering. “He was a titan of education, and he taught us that education is not just part of life — it is life itself.” Even after his retirement in 1989, Janssen remained active in academic and community life at SDSU. He frequently met with faculty, students and academic administrators. (SDSU NewsCenter)
Spurlock Poirier Promotes
Leigh Kyle to Managing Principal
Two other firm members also receive promotions
Spurlock Poirier has promoted Leigh Kyle to managing principal, Brad Lents to senior associate, and Lucas Shellhammer to associate. Collectively, the three have years of institutional and civic landscape architecture, site planning and design experience. A landscape architect with the firm since 2004, Kyle has served as project manager for a wide variety of built and planning work, including the city of San Diego’s Downtown Parks and Open Space Implementation Plan. During his five-years with the firm, Lents has worked on the new San Diego Federal Courthouse, the Mercado del Barrio, a mixed-use development located in the Barrio Logan neighborhood, Commercial and Imperial Avenue Implementation Plan. Shellhammer is currently a project landscape designer for the Living Lab in City Heights and the housing development Fincas de Mercedes, just outside Guatemala City.
Urban League Receives $150,000 Grant from Union Bank Foundation
The Urban League of San Diego County has received a $150,000 grant from the Union Bank Foundation, paid over three years, to support its work in educating low- to moderate-income home buyers. Union Bank executive Lawrence Henry presented the first year grant of $50,000 to the Urban League during the Golden Pyramid Scholars Program in San Diego.
Joan and Irwin Jacobs Donate More
Funds to Help Library Turn Page
Joan and Irwin Jacobs, who gave $20 million to the new Central Library nearing completion, are contributing up to $10 million more, the library fundraising campaign announced Tuesday, the U-T San Diego reports. The Jacobses made their latest pledge in the form of a challenge grant, promising to match all gifts up to $10 million in an effort to complete the library’s $75 million fundraising goal. The $85 million library, due to open Sept. 28 at 330 Park Blvd. in Downtown’s East Village, is being funded primarily from $80 million in redevelopment property taxes and $20 million each from a state library grant and a 20-year lease payment from the San Diego Unified School District for its charter high school located on two floors of the nine-story building.
California Power Grid Feeling Strain of Heat Wave
The California power grid is being strained by the current state-wide heat wave. But the California ISO, which oversees the grid, says it should hold up, KPBS reports. The California ISO’s Steven Greenlee says Northern California is being asked to conserve energy through tomorrow evening. But he says power outages aren’t likely. “There are other steps that we would have to go through,” he says, “and other alerts that we would put out to the public before we ever got to the point where we’d have to ask for power interruptions.” Greenlee says the southern half of the state is not under any conservation alerts, though he says the grid is strained there as well. The State of California is asking employers to pay close attention to employees during the heat wave. They must ensure employees have enough to drink and do not suffer from any heat related illnesses.
