Navy SEAL Museum proposed near San Diego Bay advances with high praise

SAN DIEGO — A proposal to build a striking, $256 million Navy SEAL Museum opposite San Diego Bay at 1220 Pacific Highway elicited an enthusiastic response from the government body that controls the downtown waterfront.

On Tuesday, the Board of Port Commissioners for the San Diego Unified Port District voted unanimously to initiate the state-mandated environmental review of the museum proposal from developers Navy SEAL Museum San Diego LLC and Hensel Phelps Development LLC.

The developers are seeking to build an 85,000-square-foot Navy SEAL Museum at the northern edge of Lane Field Park along Harbor Drive. The property is currently occupied by the U.S. Navy and dotted with dated administration buildings.

“I predict that this is going to be the No. 1 museum in San Diego. … That design that you came up with is unbelievable. I love it,” Commissioner Frank Urtasun said, directing his comments in part to the development team. “It’s very reflective of the Navy SEAL charge of wanting to put something real iconic on our waterfront. That will do it.”

The proposed Navy SEAL Museum is envisioned as a flagship venue and is rendered as an angular, four-story building with a warship-like shape, a perforated blue metal skin and a reflecting pool.

The museum is designed to give visitors unparalleled access to the inner workings of the Navy’s maritime special operations force and will include seven Smithsonian-caliber galleries, educational spaces for kids, a cafe, a retail store and an event space. The experience is punctuated by a central atrium, which extends the height of the 65-foot-tall building and is large enough to display a Black Hawk helicopter.

The development team is projecting that the museum, which will be privately financed, will reach annual attendance of 850,000 people by its third year in operation.

“The fact of the matter is that this organization has put together a projection that will work. And I think, in some ways, they’ve been very conservative,” Urtasun said.

With the board vote, the port will start the environmental review process required by the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, meaning the agency will study the impacts associated with the projects. The action does not constitute project approval. Instead, the lengthy review period affords the agency and Navy SEAL Museum San Diego time to hammer out lease terms that will require a future board vote.

If all goes as planned, the developers have said that they hope to start construction by early 2029 and open the museum in 2031 or 2032.

The ambitious museum proposal follows the Navy’s September 2023 decision to exit 1220 Pacific Highway, which was a milestone deal that returned control of a 3.4-acre site opposite San Diego Bay to the port. The federal agency’s voluntary exit triggered a 2014 first right to negotiate agreement between the port and LPP Lane Field, which is the development entity behind the immediately adjacent Lane Field hotels at Broadway and Pacific Highway.

The redevelopment proposal has morphed from a hotel-centric project for the entire site to just the Navy SEAL Museum concept on a smaller portion of the property. Given the change, only one of the three original Lane Field developers, Hensel Phelps, remains involved.

In December, the port entered into a two-year, exclusive negotiating agreement with Navy SEAL Museum San Diego and Hensel Phelps.

Navy SEAL Museum San Diego is part of the same nonprofit, UDT-SEAL Museum Association, that includes the original Navy SEAL Museum in Fort Pierce, Fla., which opened in 1985. The San Diego entity, which will be the sole owner and operator of the future museum, opened its first facility at 1001 Kettner Blvd. last year.

Hensel Phelps will oversee the project’s design, entitlement, construction and completion. It will also assist the nonprofit in securing debt financing, if required.

The plan, as proposed, calls for the museum to be built on a 1-acre parcel, next to the Marriott SpringHill Suites-Residence Inn, referred to as parcel three. The project also involves the completion of a 0.3-acre park space in front of the dual-branded hotel, referred to as parcel four.

The development team described the museum building as not only an iconic venue, but something that will help the nonprofit amplify the work and mission of the 10,000-person Naval Special Warfare Command.

“This is the scaling and maturation of an organization that has been around for 40 years in Fort Pierce, Florida, coming to San Diego because this is the heart of Naval Special Warfare, the SEAL teams. It’s also the place where we can have the greatest impact,” said Jason Booher, a retired Navy SEAL who is spearheading the project on behalf of the museum association. “It isn’t just about us pounding our chest as SEALs and the exploits that we have. It really is about who we are as fairly ordinary people, that we come together as this team, rather than just SEALs … and what are the lessons learned there that can affect people of all walks of life.”

Port commissioners praised the building’s architecture and overall design, describing the facility as an ideal addition to a downtown waterfront that already boasts complementary attractions like the USS Midway Museum and the Maritime Museum of San Diego.

“It is a beautifully designed building. World-class. And I also think that it is the perfect location for this kind of use,” said Commissioner Ann Moore.

Commissioner Dan Malcolm, who characterized the 1220 Pacific Highway location as “the corner of platinum and gold,” called the project “fantastic.” He also cautioned the agency and the museum organization to carefully vet the project’s feasibility and financial assumptions.

The museum association has said it plans to solicit most of the funds needed for the $256 million project from donors. Malcolm referenced a report, prepared by real estate consultant Jones Lang LaSalle, that notes that the nonprofit does not have a history of raising money at the level required for the project.

The UDT-SEAL Museum Association collected $8.6 million in donor contributions in 2024 and ended that calendar year with $24.5 million in assets, according to the organization’s most recent Form 990 filed with the Internal Revenue Service.

“So while I can sit up here and I can be very enthusiastic about the project and about the prospect for the project, it also is incumbent on us … that we continue to work with you to make sure that you prove the feasibility of the project, (that) you prove that you can raise the $250 million, that you can operate it, that your numbers are predicated on reality,” Malcolm said, addressing project representatives.

Tuesday’s board meeting marked the agency’s first public discussion of the project, although the commissioners have considered various iterations of the 1220 Pacific Highway proposal in closed session three times since August 2024.

The private dealings bothered at least one member of the public.

“Big projects require public input. This project was kept secret until last month. Significant decisions without any public input have been made, and the project is already asking to go into CEQA,” said Janet Rogers, who co-chairs the Embarcadero Coalition, a downtown resident group.

Rogers, who said she is generally supportive of museum buildings on the 1220 Pacific Highway property, also raised concerns about light pollution, the cost to cool the proposed structure as a result of its dark metal exterior, and the reflecting pool’s potential to be a breeding ground for mosquitoes.

The Board of Port Commissioners voted 6-0 to authorize agency staff to begin the environmental review process. Commissioner Danielle Moore was absent.