Daily Business Report-Aug. 16, 2019
Rendering of the Bayside Performance Park concert facility
San Diego Symphony announces summer 2020
opening for sparkling new Bayside Concert venue
The San Diego Symphony announced that construction will begin in September on its permanent bayside concert venue to be located in the Port of San Diego’s Embarcadero Marina Park South on the San Diego Bay with the first concerts scheduled for summer 2020.
Symphony officials said the new upgraded park and venue will feature a permanent, highly innovative, architecturally striking and acoustically superior outdoor stage that will allow the symphony to present a wider variety of musical presentations and enrich the patron experience with improved sightlines, expanded concession area and permanent bathrooms.
Groundbreaking for the project is set for October as well as the introduction of the symphony’s new musical director Rafael Payare.
The Bayside Performance Park project is being made possible solely through private philanthropy. While fundraising continues, the ability to break ground and begin construction at this time is possible because of many individuals who have been inspired by what this project will mean to San Diego and the region, symphony officials said.
Lead contributions include a gift made possible by Una Davis, and gifts from Joan and Irwin Jacobs and Ernest and Evelyn Rady.
The acoustically engineered stage features a concert shell designed to complement the San Diego Convention Center sails and surrounding Downtown development. The stage provides a larger performance space for both the orchestra and guest artists.
Design of the park was developed by Tucker Sadler Architects and will be constructed by general contractor Rudolph and Sletten. The conceptual design of the performance stage is by Soundforms, with construction by Fabrictecture. The acoustic design of the stage is by Charles Salter Acoustics of San Francisco together with sound designer and consultant Shawn Murphy.
The Symphony estimates that average attendance will be approximately 3,100 per event, however the venue will have the flexibility to accommodate a maximum capacity of 10,000 attendees. Bayside Performance Park will be part of the overall park at the Embarcadero Marina Park South and the park will be open to the public during non-event hours, or 85 percent of the year.
___________________
Living Coast Discovery Center sets new
records for fundraising and zero-waste effort
The Living Coast Discovery Center raised $114,000 in net proceeds at its 10th annual Farm to Bay event on Saturday, Aug. 3, setting a new fundraising record for the popular culinary event on San Diego Bay.
The funds, which were raised through a combination of sponsorships, ticket sales, live and silent auctions, and Raise the Paddle donations, will support coastal wildlife conservation, education and sustainability programs at the nonprofit zoo/aquarium throughout the year.
Center officials said the event reached another significant milestone this year, with 95 percent of event waste recycled or composted and diverted from landfills – the highest totals ever for the event.
In keeping with the Living Coast’s commitment to environmental sustainability, the Farm to Bay event committee has taken the necessary steps toward producing a Zero-Waste event by working closely with its partners to reduce overall waste and offer reusable and earth-friendly materials. Event waste is hand-sorted and composted on-site by a team of volunteers.
More than 350 guests attended Farm to Bay, which was headlined by three featured chefs, Matt Gordon (Blue Bridge Hospitality), Will Gustwiller (Eclipse Chocolate Bar & Bistro) and Davin Waite (Wrench & Rodent Seabasstropub).
___________________
Cal State San Marcos clean air
program having positive impact
By Eric Breier
Ashley Reyes didn’t have an opportunity to participate in Clear the Air when Cal State San Marcos became a smoke- and tobacco-free campus in fall 2017. She knew about the program, but had graduated a semester earlier.
Ashley is making the most of a second chance to get involved. Not only is she back on campus as a graduate student as CSUSM marks its second anniversary of being smoke- and tobacco-free on Aug. 28, she is helping to educate the campus community about the policy and leading student efforts to support the initiative.
Ashley was hired as the Clear the Air student coordinator for the summer and was so inspired by the program that she is staying on through the fall before graduating with a Master’s in Public Health in December.
“I think what’s really cool about Clear the Air is that it’s something we’re embedding into our campus culture,” said Ashley, who received her bachelor’s in human development. “That’s why I want to stay on through the fall, just to see that vision spread throughout campus and hopefully mesh with our culture for years to come.”
___________________
California home sales perk up in
July for first time in more than a year
The lowest mortgage interest rates in nearly three years helped jump start California’s housing market to post the first year-over-year sales gain and highest sales level in 15 months, the California Association of Realtors reported Thursday.
Closed escrow sales of existing, single-family detached homes in California totaled a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 411,630 units in July, according to information collected by C.A.R. from more than 90 local Realtor associations and MLSs statewide. The statewide annualized sales figure represents what would be the total number of homes sold during 2019 if sales maintained the July pace throughout the year. It is adjusted to account for seasonal factors that typically influence home sales.
July’s sales figure was up 5.6 percent from the 389,730 level in June and up 1.1 percent from home sales in July 2018 of 407,030.
___________________
Poway native trains to be
Navy hospital corpsman
Hospitalman Taylor Douglass, a native of Poway, has graduated from the Navy’s Recruit Training Command, and will be learning the necessary skills needed to be a hospital corpsman. A hospitalman is a hospital corpsman who provides medical care for sailors and Marines on Navy warships and land-based commands.
After “boot camp,” students attend advanced technical schools where they are taught the basic technical knowledge and skills required to be successful in their new careers.
Douglass, a 2018 graduate of Poway High School, credits success in the Navy to many of the lessons learned growing up in Poway.
“I played a lot of sports in my hometown which taught me discipline and that helped in the Navy,” Douglass said.
Boot camp is approximately eight weeks and all enlistees into the U.S. Navy begin their careers at the command. The command consists of more than 1,100 staff members, with an average of 6,000 recruits in training at any time.
___________________
Correction
Gemological Institute sells its
building to Chicago firm for $7.3 million
The Gemological Institute of America has sold its building at 1964 Kellogg Ave. in Carlsbad to Chicago-based First Industrial Acquisitions II LLC for $7.3 million. The Gemological Institute vacated the building earlier this year. Its headquarters are at 5345 Armada Drive, Carlsbad.
The building that was sold is situated on an elevated 5.5-acre site next to Carlsbad’s Palomar McClellan Airport and close Interstate 5.
Aric Starck of Cushman & Wakefield’s Carlsbad office represented the seller in the transaction. The buyer was self-represented.
___________________
UC San Diego named 4th best public
research university in United States
The University of California San Diego has been named the fourth best public university in the United States by the 2019 Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU). The rankings list the campus as the country’s 15th best university and 18th in the world.
___________________
Cal State San Marcos receives grant
to help increase STEM graduates
Cal State San Marcos has received a grant of almost $2 million from the National Science Foundation to conduct research that will help increase the number of students graduating with college degrees in STEM disciplines.
The grant of $1.9 million covers five years and was awarded to a group of researchers headed by Dr. Wesley Schultz, a psychology professor and the Dean of the Office of Graduate Studies and Research at CSUSM. Schultz will lead the project alongside Dr. Anna Woodcock, research faculty in the CSUSM psychology department, and Dr. Paul Hernandez, a professor at Texas A&M University and a CSUSM alumnus.
Schultz and his team will aim to answer the question of how the development of an identity as a scientist affects a student’s persistence and success within a STEM discipline, and how that identity aligns with the student’s other identities.
___________________
2020 Holiday Bowl will have a new
conference opponent — the ACC
Beginning in 2020, the San Diego County Credit Union Holiday Bowl will pair a team from the Pac-12 and one from the ACC, two of the highest scoring conferences in the country. Gone will be a team from the Big Ten, which will be pitted against a Pac-12 opponent this year, the last of a six-year contract.
Not one of the 15 ACC schools has ever played in the Holiday Bowl. ACC schools include Boston College, Clemson, Duke, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Louisville, Miami, North Carolina, NC State, Pitt, Syracuse, Virginia, Virginia Tech and Wake Forest. If bowl eligible and not in a College Football Playoff game, Notre Dame is also available to ACC bowls. The ACC has won more football national championships than any other conference since 2013 (three of the last six years), and in 2018 the conference had 11 schools participating in bowl games.
The Pac-12 has participated in 21 straight Holiday Bowls, 24 in all. Stanford and Oregon State are the only two schools in the 12-team conference that haven’t played in any of the 41 Holiday Bowl games. The Pac-12 teams that have participated include Arizona (2 appearances), Arizona State (4), Cal (3), Colorado (1), Oregon (3), UCLA (1), USC (2), Utah (1), Washington (4) and Washington State (4).
The 2019 game kicks off at 5 p.m., Friday, Dec. 27 and will feature top teams from the Pac-12 and Big Ten. It will be played at SDCCU Stadium and air nationally on FS1. Tickets go on sale, Friday, Aug. 16 at 10 a.m. today and can be purchased by going to www.HolidayBowl.com.
