La Jolla Community Foundation unveils final design for Phase 1 of Village streetscape plan

The La Jolla Community Foundation revealed final design plans for Phase 1 of its Village streetscape project during its annual member and donor event May 2.

The plan first would renovate Girard Avenue between Silverado and Prospect streets, adding curb extensions, paving, landscaping and lighting.

“We really need to improve the infrastructure in The Village,” foundation board member Jack McGrory said at the event at George’s at the Cove restaurant.

The La Jolla Community Foundation, established in 2008, is shepherding the streetscape project, partnering with the nonprofit Enhance La Jolla, which is authorized to operate in the public right of way to maintain and improve The Village.

Phase 1 is estimated to cost $6 million. The foundation has raised $1.5 million and applied for a state grant of $3 million.

“We need another million and a half,” McGrory said.

The plan’s main architect, Mark Steele, presented the final design, which would add curb extensions that narrow Girard Avenue in places from 60 feet wide to 24 feet.

“That’s one of the things that we start with to make the neighborhood more pedestrian-friendly,” Steele said, “because at the end of the day, it’s about people walking.”

With the extra space afforded by the curb extensions, Steele’s design adds benches, creating “places to hang out, places to meet with your friends, to eat a sandwich, to just be in The Village and be comfortable,” he said.

A rendering of the La Jolla Community Foundation’s proposed Girard Avenue streetscape shows curb extensions, new benches and trees.

(M.W. Steele Group)

The streetscape also would replace some of the “ratty” trees and add 60 to 80 more trees, Steele said, adding, “We need more shade.”

The plan will make use of existing trees and benches if they’re in good shape, he said.

“We didn’t want to just mow down trees and put in new ones,” said foundation Chairwoman Phyllis Pfeiffer, who also is president and general manager of the La Jolla Light.

Current lighting in the area is “terrible,” Steele said. “It doesn’t meet city [of San Diego] standards.”

The new streetscape would add about 40 new streetlights and other fixtures. “We need to bring people to the point where they feel good about walking in the evenings,” Steele said.

Phase 1 also would include a midblock crossing between Silverado and Wall streets, enhancing and shortening the current crosswalk with curb extensions.

Steele likened the resulting spaces to the plazas created by adding roundabouts in Bird Rock that encourage sitting or socializing.

Further south at Girard and Silverado, “the most active intersection” and a quarter-mile east of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, the design calls for special paving in the intersection to “make it a totally unique place,” Steele said.

Design elements at the intersection’s corners make use of similar features at the museum, Steele said, like decorative rocks in the wall.

Architect Mark Steele discusses Phase 1 streetscape plans at the La Jolla Community Foundation’s member and donor event May 2.

(Elisabeth Frausto)

The foundation hopes work on Phase 1 will begin by the end of the year. Steele declined to give a completion date.

If the foundation can’t raise the full cost of construction for Phase 1, it will take the project “block by block,” Pfeiffer said.

“If we get this done,” McGrory said, “it’ll begin to create momentum for doing the entire Village.”

The other of the two “broad phases” of the foundation’s overall Village streetscape project is creating a plaza at “The Dip” on Prospect Street.

To learn more about the streetscape plan or for donation information, go to ljcommunityfoundation.org/streetscape. ◆