Core
Downtown's Core neighborhood stretches from A Street to Broadway and Union and 12th Avenue. As its name connotes, the Core is the visual and physical center of downtown. Alonzo Horton began hotel and retail developments here in the 1860s and in the 1920s saw the addition of several grand theatres. The Core was downtown's fashionable business and entertainment quarter until the urban center's decline began in the 1960s. Since the Centre City Development Corporation's inception in 1975, development of the Core has been a crucial element to revitalizing San Diego's downtown area. Many old buildings have been renovated for new residential and commercial uses, drawing people into the neighborhood to live and work.
This Core now serves as the San Diego region's government and corporate hub, housing the Civic Center, City Hall, the Small Business Administration and the World Trade Center. Broadway and C Street are focal areas for daytime and nighttime activities fostered by street-level merchants. Existing notable structures in the Core include the Westgate and U.S. Grant hotels, the City Administration Building complex, Community Concourse and the Civic Theatre, the new Central Jail, trolley stops along C Street, and the high-rise offices of the B Street "Financial Corridor."
