jakemuirhead Now that the richest developers in Long Beach (and surprise, the City Council) say the southeast zoning plan known as SEADIP is open to evaluation and change, the timing seems right for me to suggest a brilliant addition to the coastal zone around the intersection of 2nd Street andPacific Coast Highway.

Have I ever mentioned how much I love baseball? Oh, OK. Well, have I ever mentioned why?

It’s because baseball is the thinking-man’s sport. It’s not like football, and it’s definitely not like soccer. I hate soccer. To me, soccer is even more boring than golf or fly-fishing.

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Last week, I spent a day in San Diego, where a colleague and I were hired to take architectural photographs. While waiting for that “sweet light” to cast its lovely glow across our photographic target, we took a quick spin around downtown.

What a lovely city! I was amazed bySan Diego’s bustling vitality and lack of empty storefronts: every sidewalk café was overflowing with folks having a good time. And I wondered: why isn’t Long Beach more like this?

Somehow I remembered that David Malmuth—the developer who’s spent the past few years trying to force his huge, strange Second+PCH project onLong Beach—lives inSan Diego. And I wondered again: if Malmuth enjoys living in a city as cool as San Diego, why did he not propose the same kind of cool forLong Beach?

On the surface, there isn’t too much difference between San Diego and Long Beach. Both have great coastlines, beautiful weather, great looking guys and gals. But as I looked deeper, I started to notice some glaring differences.

San Diego still has the US Navy, which ditched Long Beach during the Clinton Administration.

San Diego has preserved many more of its older and architecturally significant buildings thanLong Beach, which barely seems to consider the issue. While it’s true that San Diego’s downtown features plenty of new and contemporary structures, the area also reflects an acknowledgement of San Diego’s rich history. Not Long Beach, where so much of our history has been blighted and removed.

Both cities have convention centers. But the Long Beach Convention Center seems separate from downtown, even isolated, in a way that feels unfriendly to pedestrians.

In San Diego, the walk from the convention center into the downtown not only appears short, but it also appears friendly—enticing, even. I felt sad to be in a car.

And while there were plenty of cars in San Diego, it’s clear from even a cursory glance that the City has incorporated more and better transportation options than Long Beach. San Diego has a real train that travels to its downtown. The Amtrak gives San Diegoans a far greater travel range than Long Beachers with their mere access to the Blue Line. Rail travel is a viable alternative to San Diego’s major airport, which hasn’t been silly enough to limit itself to 40 flights a day.

Amtrak can practically drop off passengers on the doorstep at Petco Park, the stadium where the San Diego Padres play their home games during the Major League Baseball seaons, and that is truly a stroke of city planning brilliance. Not only that, but the ballpark is in walking distance of all the wonders of the downtown cafes, boutiques, and the convention center. So when people come to games, chances are good they’ll stay and dine somewhere close by after the game. In fact, everything a tourist needs to have a really darn good time is in walking distance.

A major league ball park promises return visits from tourists and fans—something the locals can enjoy, too– over and over again. It’s not like an aquarium, where let’s face it, once you’ve seen it, you’ve seen it. There really aren’t too many incentives to visit an aquarium over and over again. But with a home baseball team, every season ticket holder, every fan has a reason to come back again, time and time  again and again.

So this is why I am officially proposing that we put in a major league ball park at the corner of PCH and 2nd Street:

We said we wanted a gateway toLong Beach and what could be a finer gateway than an awesome looking ballpark?

A ballpark is the perfect match forLong Beach because our city has created more major league ball players than any other city in the USA. Long Beach is a freaking baseball town. We’ve tried being the Aquatic Capitol and we’ve tried being bike friendly, how about we try connecting with our real claim to fame for a change?

And getting back to that SEADIP review and possible changes,  a ball park is only about six or seven stories—much shorter than the 12-story hotel Malmuth proposed for Second+PCH–a brilliant compromise for those who aren’t comfy with 12 stories but are willing to loosen up on the current 35-feet height restriction.

Some of you are about to point out that the lot at the intersection of 2nd+pch  isn’t big enough to accommodate a full size stadium. Here’s a solution for that—a la Brian Ulaszewski’s idea to close a block’s worth of street to make Armory Park. I have the same idea! Let’s close a block of street to make a ball park!  Let’s just close Marina Drive between Second and North Studebaker Rd.  Using the entire boatowner’s parking lot and taking over Flying Cloud Yacht’s property by imminent domain and BAM! Looks like we have a ball park plan,  folks!

We still need to amend SEADIP for this, but I think that is a small hurdle. Let’s move forward in the meantime.

Seriously, think of the jobs and money this is going to bring in. And think of the baseball.

You can thank me later by calling our new team the “Honeybadgers.”