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WHAT’S INSIDE?
Vol. 23 No. 7 July 2015
THE MAN WHO BROUGHT TARGET TO SOUTH PARK On local outcry, Saad Hirmez says, ‘The community needs to keep an open mind’
Appeal Filed in Jack in the Box Lawsuit Care About North Park is pressing forward with its legal battle against Jack in the Box and the city of San Diego over a controversial drivethrough lane. PAGE 2
Saints Scholars St. Augustine High graduating seniors Julio Serrano and Andres Bustos are both winners of the highly prized Gates Millennium Scholarship an award that will cover all their academic costs from college through graduate school. PAGE 6
South Park businessman Saad Hirmez created a vocal firestorm in the community last year when word got out that he had leased the building housing the now-shuttered Gala Foods market to Target for a TargetExpress store at the Fern and Grape street site. The news led to the creation of Care About South Park, a group of local residents, homeowners and business owners determined to keep Target out of the neighborhood. “By occupying the largest building in the heart of South Park, Target would define our neighborhood, permanently altering its unique and charming personality,” the organization declares on its website. A protest rally was held, and the organization urged a boycott of the store after it opened. Despite the opposition, Target representatives reported at a June 22 meeting of the Greater Golden Hill Planning Committee that the TargetExpress store would open on Oct. 7. In this Q&A with North Park News, Saad Hirmez gives an explanation of SEE TARGET, Page 12
Discovering the Maya “Maya: Hidden Worlds Revealed,” an original exhibition, has opened at the San Diego Natural History Museum and will be on view through Jan. 3, 2016. PAGE 10
Doctors With Big Hearts Lend Healing Hands Fresh Start Surgical Gifts transforms the lives of disadvantaged infants, children and teens with physical deformities through free reconstructive surgery. PAGE 21
Businessman Saad Hirmez at the now closed Gala Foods market.
Rendering of the outside of the TargetExpress store. (Target photo)
Planners’ Density Dreams Are About to Come True on El Cajon Boulevard More than 800 new rental units are on the horizon B Z
Y OE SCHAVER
| VOICE OF SAN DIEGO
El Cajon Boulevard is about to become a test case for San Diego’s vision of a neighborhood packed with dense, affordable urban housing. The question is whether public funds and community plans will keep up with the boulevard’s development boom. Running from North Park out toward San Diego State University and La Mesa, El Cajon Boulevard passes through eight diverse communities, including Normal Heights, University Heights, City Heights and Kensington-Talmadge. More than 800 new rental units will start construction along the boulevard in the next two years. For comparison, about 500 new units went up in the entire decade from 2005 to 2015. The corridor also received heavy public investment recently, including the full restoration of the Lafayette Hotel, which planners call the “jewel” of El Cajon Boulevard, and the $44 million bus rapid transit project that debuted last year. That, plus a gradual increase in land values, peaked develSEE BLVD, Page 13
‘We’ve done 20 years of public improvements, but there’s more to do,’ says Beryl Forman, marketing director of the Boulevard Improvement Association.