Sen. Steve Padilla represents California’s 18th State Senate District. He is a lifelong Chula Vista resident and former mayor of Chula Vista.
Inequity has always haunted San Diego’s South Bay. That’s not news to those of us that grew up here. When we were young, we didn’t visit our bayfront because it was mostly fenced off. We didn’t have the kind of coastline that would make a good backdrop for family photos; instead, we had factories and a power plant, all covered in scaffolding.
For generations, Chula Vista and the South Bay got skipped. Private capital went north. Public investment went north. There’s a reason that the median income in the Bayfront community is 15 percent below that of the rest of the county. We were forgotten.
When people talk about a historically disadvantaged community, this is what they mean: a place treated as an afterthought, while investment flowed everywhere else.
Most of my adult life I have served the city of Chula Vista and this community fighting that kind of inequity – as a councilmember, as mayor, as a San Diego Port Commissioner, as chair of the California Coastal Commission, and now as your state senator. In each role, I have been a part of the different elements and stages of the Bayfront Master Plan and the Gaylord Pacific development.
The overall plan, the largest waterfront redevelopment on the Western seaboard, is one driven by the community, ambitious and yet attainable, environmentally sustainable, and one that reinvests into the very region it seeks to benefit.
Progress is always a battle, but over the years, we have slowly and surely created a public waterfront that finally belongs to the people who live here and all Californians. This bayfront reflects the community’s vision – shaped by hundreds of meetings and forums in the early 2000s. A long fought victory that is only just beginning to transform the area.
So, when naysayers already want to declare the Chula Vista Bayfront a failure, it is important to return to the facts.
The Gaylord Pacific Resort and Convention Center opened in May 2025, and in that short time, is already the third highest-grossing Marriott property in the world. With 400,000 room nights booked this year, the Port of San Diego has said hotel revenue is currently running about 25 percent above what was projected when the financing closed in 2022. That success is already drawing more capital investment proposals to Chula Vista, a critical piece of the masterplan for the waterfront.
This strong first year is just the start. The big picture is this: a $1.35 billion generational investment that will pay off over time. This is a timeline meant to be measured just as it was developed – in decades, not quarters. It’s an investment in our future.
That investment is already making incredible returns to the community. The Gaylord provided Chula Vistans over 3,000 jobs during construction and now 1,200 full- and part-time positions as the hotel operates, giving our community diverse employment opportunities.
That investment, backed by revenues from the Gaylord, has also paid for the gorgeous Sweetwater Park. At 39 acres, it is the largest park in the Port’s entire system – packed with people every weekend, bringing green spaces to the waterfront so dearly missing before.
Some of the criticisms of this massive benefit to our community feel like the tired arguments of the past, spoken by those who would have preferred to leave the bayfront the way it was. All spoken by the same folks who spent decades directing investment and attention and improvements away from the South Bay – the very paradigm we fought to change.
Suggesting now that these investments should have gone somewhere else lays the argument bare. Our success isn’t worth it to them. This community has fought inequity for decades. To suggest that we are any less deserving of attention, development, or improvement is to perpetuate the history of underservice that got us here in the first place.
Great change takes time to plan and must be given the time to succeed. The Chula Vista Bayfront has only just begun to flourish after decades of careful planning. We cannot allow shortsighted naysayers to declare the project a failure before it even has time to succeed.
Let’s give our community and this project the time it deserves.