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San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria said Thursday he will aggressively pursue a new sports arena project despite legal challenges and will revive plans to transform the downtown Civic Center, starting with new college classrooms.
Delivering his sixth annual State of the City address, the mayor also announced that San Diego had permitted 7,500 new homes in 2025 — the third year in a row that permits have been nearly twice the city’s long-term average.
The mayor also said he would try to increase national focus on the housing crisis this year as president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the first time San Diego has led that group.
Gloria’s annual speech, delivered at City Hall on Thursday afternoon, touched on familiar themes but offered less ambitious proposals than he had made in addresses earlier in his mayoralty.
And as in last year’s speech, he continued to urge other government agencies to help San Diego solve its problems.
He called on Caltrans to expand efforts to clear homeless encampments under freeways. He called on the state to better fund a crackdown on retail theft. And he again called on the county to address the mental illness and addiction problems that he said contribute to the city’s homelessness crisis.
The mayor also touted recent accomplishments, such as substantially closing a large city budget deficit and reducing street homelessness with the help of new designated parking lots and legal camping areas for homeless p...
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