Coronado Ferry Landing Renovation: What Changes From 2027 to 2029

Ask five people on Coronado what's happening at the Ferry Landing and you'll get five different answers. Some will tell you it's getting torn down. Others will say the whole thing fell apart last fall and nobody knows what comes next. A few will shrug and say nothing ever changes down there anyway, so why worry about it.

None of those answers is quite right, and the real one is more useful than any of them. After eight months of closed-session votes, a public reversal, and a fight over who pays for what, the Port of San Diego and the shopping center's longtime operator finally settled on a plan this summer. The scheduled construction phases won't start for almost another year. When those phases begin, they will happen in two pieces, timed so half the center stays open while the other half gets rebuilt. If you know which half is which, you know exactly what your Tuesday routine looks like for the next three years.

Why the Center Almost Lost Its Lease Entirely

The Coronado Ferry Landing has operated under the same company, Port Coronado Associates, since the property was first developed in the 1980s. That 40-year lease was set to expire on June 30, 2026, and for most of that history the renewal process was a formality. Not this time.

In October 2025, the Port's Board of Commissioners voted in closed session not to renew PCA's lease at all, a decision that only became public in a November letter after Coronado's City Council pushed for an explanation. The stated reason was deferred maintenance. Two third-party consultants had assessed the property in the spring of 2024 and identified roughly $17.5 million in deferred maintenance that fell under the tenant's responsibility per the lease, and the Port argued PCA's renewal proposal didn't address it.

Here's the detail that puts that number in perspective. The Port's entire annual rent revenue from the 13-acre bayfront property was just under $1.1 million in fiscal year 2025. A $17.5 million repair bill on a lease generating barely a million a year is the kind of mismatch that turns a routine renewal into a standoff, and that's essentially what happened. PCA disputed how the maintenance concerns were communicated, Coronado's council called the process opaque, and by December the Board reversed course again, sending the matter back into closed-session negotiation after PCA submitted a revised proposal.

Frank Urtasun, Coronado's representative on the Port Board, spent much of that period as the go-between. Mayor John Duncan pushed publicly for transparency in how the decision was made. By spring, PCA had resolved roughly 95 of the deferred maintenance items the Port had flagged.

What the Port Actually Approved in June

On June 23, 2026, the Board of Port Commissioners approved an Option to Lease Agreement with PCA. It isn't the final 35-year lease yet, it's a 12-month option period during which PCA has to hit a specific list of milestones: secure project financing, obtain permits, submit working drawings, post payment and performance bonds, begin early demolition and parking work, and line up signed letters of intent for at least a quarter of the center's leasable space. Clear that bar and PCA gets the 35-year Amended and Restated Lease. Miss it and the option lapses.

The renovation itself carries a $13.9 million price tag for landside and pier improvements, plus a separate requirement that PCA spend no less than $5.3 million on future subtenant improvements. Together that's close to the $20 million PCA originally proposed back in 2022, which tells you the number was never really the disagreement. The disagreement was about trust, timeline, and who moved first.

One upside of the delay: the new deal actually moves construction up by a year from PCA's earlier plan and shortens the total build from 36 months to 24. The scope also grew to include the ferry pier's structural and utility systems, work that wasn't part of the original proposal.

The Two Phases, Building by Building

This is the part that matters if you're planning a birthday dinner, a bike rental, or just your normal Tuesday.

The center itself is roughly 38,000 square feet of specialty retail on that 13-acre site, and the plan splits it cleanly down the middle. Spiro's closes first, alongside Buildings 2A and 2B. Peohe's, Village Pizzeria, and Lil' Piggy's don't go dark until Phase 2, a full year later. Nothing about this plan closes the entire property at once.

The work behind the scenes is unglamorous but tells you this is a real capital project, not a cosmetic refresh: new asphalt overlays on the parking lots, LED lighting to replace the existing fixtures, new roofing and glazing, replacement of water-damaged siding and plywood, and a full signage overhaul for wayfinding and ADA compliance. Port policy also requires PCA to dedicate at least 1 percent of the tenant improvement cost to public art, so expect something new in the plazas by the time both phases wrap.

What Doesn't Change, and Why That Fountain Detail Matters

If you've been avoiding the Ferry Landing because you assumed it was already a construction zone, it isn't yet. The scheduled construction phases don't begin until at least July 2027, and then only in the sections listed above.

A few things that stay exactly as they are through both phases:

• The Coronado Certified Farmers Market still runs every Tuesday from 2:30 to 6 p.m., one of the longest-running farmers markets in San Diego County
• Holland's Bikes & Beyond, the primary bike rental outpost feeding the Bayshore Bikeway, keeps operating from the west lot
• Weekend live music and the general dine-shop-bike rhythm of the center continue uninterrupted in whichever half isn't under construction that year

The fountain detail is worth sitting with for a second. Part of Phase 1's plaza work involves reworking the existing fountain to reduce its footprint and hand that reclaimed space back to the adjacent plaza and common areas. A dispute that started as an argument over $17.5 million in deferred maintenance is ending, at least in one small way, with more usable public space at the exact spot where the market sets up every week. That's not something a rendering or a press release tends to spell out, but it's the kind of detail that changes how a Tuesday afternoon actually feels once construction wraps.

What This Means for the Next Three Years

If you have a favorite dinner spot at the Ferry Landing, this is the year to use it before its building's phase comes up. Spiro's and the tenants in Buildings 2A and 2B are the first to feel construction, starting as early as next July. Peohe's, Village Pizzeria, and Lil' Piggy's have another full year of normal operation before their phase begins in the summer of 2028.

For anyone who treats the Ferry Landing as a weekly habit rather than a tourist stop, the practical takeaway is simple. The first scheduled construction phase is set to begin no earlier than July 2027. When it does, it happens in a sequence designed so you're never without a market, a bike rental, or a place to eat by the water, even while half the center is behind construction fencing.

Coronado has spent the better part of a year debating who's responsible for a waterfront landmark that opened in 1987 and has been part of daily island life ever since. The resolution says something about how this town handles disputes over its most visible shared spaces: slowly, publicly, and with enough back and forth that the final plan usually ends up better than the first one on the table.

If you're weighing a move to the island, or thinking about what a property near this stretch of the bayfront is worth once the renovation is behind it, the Olga Stevens Group has spent three decades watching Coronado's public spaces evolve and knows how projects like this one tend to move property values on the surrounding blocks. Schedule a private consultation with Olga Stevens Group to talk through what it means for your corner of the island.