Ship to Shore

New Navy Housing Far Cry From Barracks

The Navy is going upscale, at least by its traditional housing standards.

It has partnered with two private firms to build four apartment towers, each 18 stories tall, on the San Diego Naval Base at 32nd Street. With a balcony for each unit, the development will hardly resemble triple-stacked ship bunks or the spartan shore barracks of days past.

The Pacific Beacon high-rises will feature trendy amenities, including wireless Internet capability, a fitness center, a juice bar, a rooftop swimming pool and an onsite dry-cleaning service.

“If you picked it up and dropped it downtown, it would fit right in,” said Jim Milligan, a vice president at Pinnacle, a partner in the Pacific Beacon venture.

A similar complex is in the works for Norfolk, Va., and Camp Pendleton is considering one as well.

It's all part of the military's strategy to recruit and retain service members through better living standards, and to lessen the Navy's local housing shortage. It also reflects the Pentagon's push to get out of the business of building and managing housing for service members. “In a 21st-century all-volunteer Navy, improved quality of life directly relates to increased retention and a cost savings,” said Rear Adm. Len Hering, commander of Navy Region Southwest.

Construction of Pacific Beacon could begin as early as August. The first units are expected to be ready for occupancy in summer 2008, with the entire project to be finished in early 2009, said Cheryl Connett, the Navy's project manager.

Once completed, the development will house up to 1,882 sailors who are single or temporarily separated from their families because of deployments. That will help plug what the Navy estimates is a shortage of 7,125 housing units in the San Diego area for mostly single sailors.

But critics say the $300 million high-rises would dwarf the surrounding Barrio Logan neighborhood's mix of single-family homes, low-rise stores and light industry.

The state Coastal Commission voted 8-1 last month to approve the Pacific Beacon proposal despite objections from its own staff that the project wouldn't mesh with the adjacent area. “The proposed buildings would not be in scale and character with the neighborhood, not even close,” said Vicki Estrada, a private consultant who has worked on development issues for Barrio Logan. “However, the Navy does not need to get community approval as such, so there is really nothing the community can do.”

The Navy did not feel obligated to consult with Barrio Logan's leaders, said Navy spokesman Bryan O'Rourke.

“There was no requirement to conduct outreach or briefings,” O'Rourke said.

To sailors, Pacific Beacon would be a giant step up. For decades, single sailors lived aboard ships in cramped quarters with zero privacy, even during months of home-port duty. When stationed ashore, they stay in open barracks with locker-room style bathrooms.

When Seaman Geraldine Ferraren is at sea, her personal space consists of one mattress on a stacked bunk and a locker to store a few clothes.

“It's near the TV and it's near the (toilet). It's really loud all the time,” said Ferraren, 21, of the San Diego-based dock-landing ship Rushmore.

Aboard the ship, 100 sailors may share three or four shower stalls and toilets. Six people live in a space the size of a walk-in closet.“It's hard to call it home,” said Petty Officer 3rd Class Christopher Hernandez, 25, another Rushmore sailor.

Milligan, the Pinnacle vice president, kept his own 1960s-era military quarters in mind when he designed Pacific Beacon.

“Every barracks I lived in in the Air Force was condemned,” he said. “It was open-bay, zero privacy, with 500 of your closest friends – a miserable place to live.”

Downscale barracks served as a military rite of passage until the 1990s, when military leaders realized that many young service members were leaving the armed forces, often taking their expensive technical training to the private sector.

Hoping to encourage re-enlistment, the Pentagon started a $14 billion, 20-year program to upgrade onshore barracks nationwide. These modern quarters feature dorm-style rooms where two service members live, sharing a bathroom and kitchenette, with a room divider to give each person a bit of privacy.

In 2000, the Navy supplemented the barrack upgrades with an initiative called Homeport Ashore. This program moves ship-based sailors out of bunk spaces below decks into on-shore apartments when their vessels are in port.Four years later, Navy Region Southwest opened Palmer Hall at the 32nd Street base, where about 1,000 junior sailors were chosen to move into the dorm-style apartments.

“It's a lot quieter than the ship,” said Seaman Dave Lavko, 33, who recently moved into Palmer Hall from Rushmore. “It's a privilege to live there.”

Pacific Beacon will be constructed on base property currently used as a golf course and driving range for the sailors. Clark Realty Capital of Bethesda, Md., will build the four towers, an accompanying parking structure and an adjacent parking lot.

The Pacific Beacon apartments will be rented and maintained by Pinnacle, a real estate investment and management firm based in Seattle. Pinnacle also will take over management of Palmer Hall.

Pinnacle and Clark Realty Capital have worked on 11 military housing complexes for families, but this is the first venture into Navy barracks.

“It gets the Navy out of the business of being a landlord,” said Connett, the Navy project manager.

For the sailor-tenants of Palmer Hall and Pacific Beacon, improved living standards will bring with them a new system of responsibility. The Navy is outsourcing discipline along with property management.

No longer will commanders inspect sailors' quarters, approve their visitors or supervise their use of alcohol. The Navy also will give tenants a housing allowance so they can make their own rental payments. Currently, on-base housing is free.That kind of arrangement would have been unthinkable in 1977, when Master Chief Petty Officer Daniel Benitez, 46, Navy Region Southwest's senior enlisted sailor, joined the service.

“This is a different Navy than from the time I came in. They're better educated, more mature,” Benitez said. “I am confident that, given the quality of the sailor we have now, we won't see any problems.”

Milligan of Pinnacle said the buildings will have 24-hour security in case of trouble.

“If things do start to get a little too rowdy, there'll be someone there to deal with it,” he said. “There are still standards of conduct they're going to have to live by.”