A Japanese developer is planning a hotel and office tower on the site of a shuttered live music venue in downtown San Diego, as the city looks to get some older and underused buildings repurposed in the urban core.
Tokyo-based Iida Group Holdings submitted preliminary plans for a 32-story tower at 345 B St., where demolition is underway on the building that once housed 4th&B, a concert venue that hosted performances between 1995 and 2012.
According to local media reports, those performing at the 1,500-seat venue over the years included prominent bands and solo musicians such as Crosby, Stills & Nash, Little River Band, Duran Duran and B.B. King. The venue closed in December 2012 amid a dispute over rent payments, according to local media reports.
Iida has not submitted formal proposals to city planners and did not immediately respond to a request from CoStar News to comment. A preliminary description filed with the city’s development services department indicates the developer is planning a 402-foot tower with approximately 58,000 square feet of office space and 300 hotel rooms.
CoStar and public data show the vacated concert venue was originally built as a retail property in 1985 and spans approximately 21,000 square feet. It was purchased by Iida Group for approximately $7.5 million in March 2016.
The planned project is in a part of downtown San Diego where the city and local developers have been looking for several years to get a block of older, underused office and retail buildings put to new uses. It is located just outside more popular and visitor-centric downtown areas including the Gaslamp Quarter and East Village.
The former 4th&B site is within the same block as the vacated former California Theatre building at 1122 Fourth Ave., which opened in 1927 as a movie theater and later served as a live music venue before being vacated in 1990.
The city has called on owner Caydon Property Group to demolish that former theater property, which has fallen into disrepair, after the Australia-based developer abandoned plans for a condo-hotel redevelopment before its recent bankruptcy filing. The developer’s lender-appointed receiver has told the city it is in the process of arranging demolition.