A Bridge to Baseball

Pedestrian Plank Connects Omni Hotel and Petco Park

Two prominent additions to the downtown San Diego landscape—the
$294 million Petco Park, home of the Padres, and the $165 million
Omni Hotel—are connected by an 80-ft.-long, 10-ft.-wide suspension bridge. The entire load is carried on the side of the 32-story hotel. .

By Greg Aragon

When the $165 million Omni Hotel opened on April 8 in San Diego, it did more than add a classy place to stay for downtown visitors.

It provided a bridge to baseball.

Unlike most suspension bridges, which have either catenary cables running vertically or a post in the middle, with cables running in both directions, the Omni skybridge has one 80-ft.-tall concrete column at the end of the bridge, with cables splayed from a single mast. The aluminum-clad column is embedded in a glass enclosure on the Omni side, which also houses the hotel's escalators (photo by Greg Aragon).

Built directly beside Petco Park, a 46,000-seat baseball stadium, which also officially opened April 8, the 32-story hotel features a 30-ft.-high pedestrian skybridge connecting guests to the stands of the San Diego Padres' ballpark.

"I think you would have to look very far to find another bridge like this one," said design architect Jeffrey Till of San Francisco-based Hornberger + Worstell Associates. "To have a suspension bridge with an urban building is pretty unusual."

He said that although pedestrian bridges are usually built using a truss system, the "suspension idea allowed us to have less bridge because the structure is in the wires instead of a beam and therefore much more lightweight."

Magnusson Klemencic Associates Inc. was the structural engineer for both the hotel and the bridge.

The entire load of the 80-ft.-long, 10-ft.-wide cantilevered overpass is carried on the hotel side. There is only a light non-structural weld bearing on the ballpark side.

Unlike most suspension bridges, which have either catenary cables running vertically or a post in the middle, with cables running in both directions, the Omni skybridge has one 80-ft.-tall concrete column at the end of the bridge, with cables splayed from a single mast. The aluminum-clad column is embedded in a glass enclosure on the Omni side, which also houses the hotel's escalators.

advertisement

Till said that his biggest concern with the bridge was making it look stronger and visually more substantial.

"By nature, a suspension bridge is a very minimalistic structure, so we added some aluminum panels along the underside of the bridge to give it a little bit more heft visually," he added.

Developed by San Diego-based JMI Realty, the 600,728-sq.-ft. Omni is located adjacent to the popular Gaslamp Quarter—home to a few blocks of bars, restaurants and shops—and across the street from the San Diego Convention Center. The hotel is within walking distance of more than 80 restaurants and boutiques and is about 4 mi. from San Diego International Airport.

Hotel amenities include 512 guestrooms and suites; more than 20,000 sq. ft. of meeting space, including a 9,750-sq.-ft. ballroom; and two exterior swimming pools located on the sixth and 22nd floors.

The top 11 floors of the hotel consist of a private community of 37 luxury condominiums known as "The Metropolitan." Each condo comes with sweeping views of San Diego Bay, the ballpark and the San Diego skyline.

The condos are priced between $1.2 million and $2.8 million.

The $165 million Omni Hotel opened in April and is another important ingredient in the redevelopment of San Diego's East Village. Petco Park, the $294 million home of the Padres, is in the background on the left.(photo by Greg Aragon).

"This project represents a major milestone in the Ballpark District redevelopment effort, adding much needed hotel rooms to the downtown San Diego marketplace and laying the foundation for more than $1 billion in residential, office, retail and entertainment space that is planned over the next several years," said John Kratzer, president of JMI Realty, which is also the master developer of the Ballpark District.

San Diego Mayor Dick Murphy said that the hotel alone would generate more than $3 million in transit occupancy taxes annually.

Built by general contractor Swinerton Builders of San Francisco, the hotel sits on a relatively small 42,394-sq.-ft. site, which threw some curves into the game once the baseball park went up, said Steve Hilton, Swinerton project manager.

"We had empty dirt lots that the construction teams were allowed to park in for both the park and the hotel," he added. "But their site finished a month before the hotel, and when they started paving, they kicked us out and made us move our trailers."

With no on-site parking Hilton said that the construction team had to pack up a complex of about 24 trailers, tool sheds and stocking yards and move them around the city three separate times.

"Each move took four days at breakneck speed, while we were building a building," he said. "Those kinds of things are outside of what we do."