Marina Should Focus on Downtown Redevelopment

By David W. Brown

One way our city can start revitalizing downtown is to make it more available and attractive to the CSUMB university community as a place to shop and dine. California Avenie south of Imjin Parkway needs a direct connection to General Jim Moore Blvd, so that CSUMB students in the dormitories along General Jim Moore Blvd. can access downtown without driving through the current zig-zagging pothole-ridden route. This was to happen with development of Marina Heights, but is not stalled die to that development being put on hold. We need to find a way to fund that connection, to make it easier for CSUMB students, faculty and staff to access our downtown. Perhaps we could look to the developer to fund it as a condition of the next of its ongoing requests to delay implementation of its agreement with the city. We also need to explore a connection -- in addition to Reservation Road -- between Central Marina and the CSUMB East Campus Housing area, for much the same reason.