Downtown San Diego & The Gaslamp Quarter
Long the political, legal and financial center of the city of San Diego, in the past twenty years, downtown San Diego has transformed into San Diego's heart and soul.
Following years of revitalization, downtown San Diego is now an inviting place to live, work and play, and many San Diegans are taking advantage of all three aspects. For residents or visitors, downtown San Diego is a great place to enjoy shopping, dining and entertainment.
Stretching over a 16 block area of downtown San Diego, the Gaslamp Quarter is happening and trendy and it is where you can find boutique hotels, chic restaurants, coffee houses, art galleries, unique specialty shops and boutiques and the best San Diego night clubs and bars. And on the waterfront, Seaport Village offers not only a myriad of small shops, but also an ideal place for an afternoon stroll.
Downtown cultural life thrives with theater, dance and music. In the dramatic realm, San Diego Repertory Theatre makes its home at the Lyceum Theatre; the Gaslamp Quarter Theatre stages productions in the Hahn Cosmopolitan Theatre; and the Bowery Theatre presents its plays in the Kingston Theatre.
The San Diego Symphony holds its concerts in Symphony Hall in downtown San Diego. Other concerts, dance and musical productions, and touring theatrical performances are held in the San Diego Civic Theatre, San Diego Convention and Performing Arts Center and Spreckels Theatre in downtown San Diego.
San Diego's artists lived and worked in downtown San Diego long before the area became desirable for most people as a residential possibility, with the result that downtown San Diego now boasts the largest concentration of art galleries and artists' studios in the city of San Diego.
The San Diego Convention Center, which opened in 1989, is an impressively designed structure nestled on the waterfront in downtown San Diego. San Diego Convention Center is the home to many conventions, trade shows and consumer shows, including San Diego Comic-Con which is largest comic book and popular arts convention in the entire world.
Adding to the pizzazz of Downtown San Diego is the recently constructed Petco Park baseball park, home to the San Diego Padres. Located in East Village in downtown San Diego, Petco Park is widely regarded as one of the finest baseball stadiums in the world which is in part why it helps attract hundreds of thousands of people to downtown San Diego each year.
The key to any successful urban revitalization project is re-establishing the residential community. Downtown San Diego has been successful in attracting many new city dwellers by offering everything from posh condominium complexes for high-end buyers to single-room occupancy hotels for low-end renters. Residents living in San Diego are rediscovering the advantages of living in an urban setting, chief among them, the easy access to work, culture, the best shopping and the best entertainment activities in San Diego.