VOLUME 20 ISSUE 7
July 2019 Follow us on social media
Columbia • Core/Civic • Cortez Hill • East Village • Gaslamp/Horton Plaza • Little Italy • Marina
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Parakeet Café soars Page 11
Assembly member Gonzalez attacks predatory loans KENDRA SITTON | Downtown News
Village Clips opens
LITTLE ITALY P. 7 An aerial view of Horton Plaza (Photo courtesy Stockdale Capital Partners)
Timetable for Horton Plaza’s metamorphosis is in motion NEWLY NAMED CAMPUS AT HORTON TO BE READY BY LATE 2020
First Pride brunch
DAVE FIDLIN | Downtown News
ARTS EVENTS P. 12
Horton Plaza’s metamorphosis from a traditional shopping mall to a mixed-use tech hub is slated to occur over the next year and a
half, based on recently revealed details. Los Angeles-based Stockdale Capital Partners has pitched the so-called Campus at Horton as a tech hub.
Representatives with the development company, which acquired Horton Plaza a year ago from longtime owner Westfield, SEE HORTON PLAZA, Page 5
Thriving in 75 square feet JOYELL NEVINS | Downtown News
Westgate’s poolside jazz Sometimes 75 square feet is all you need. Walk into Claire Sims’s Downtown apartment, and you’ll notice she has a bookshelf, bed, desk, dresser, kitchen, and sink — all in a space that measures 6 feet wide by 12.5 feet long by 10 feet high. “I only wanted to keep stuff that [I] love, use, and need,” Sims said. When you’re able to weld your own furniture to fit just right, that space fills even better. When Sims originally moved into the
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SEE TINY APARTMENT, Page 12
The ladder to the loft Claire Sims welded herself (Photo by Claire Sims)
San Diego Assembly member Lorena Gonzalez is continuing her push in Sacramento to end high-cost loans. The bill barring predatory loans by capping interest rates, AB 539, was passed in the Assembly on May 23 with bipartisan support. Now it is being amended in Senate committees as advocates worry it will never make it to the floor. “It still has quite a little road go down. We haven’t had the outward support we were hoping for,” Gonzalez said after a panel at the Westin Hotel on the effects of high-cost loans in San Diego on June 7. While dozens of states, as well as the District of Columbia, cap interest rates for small loans, similar proposals in California have repeatedly died in the Legislature. Gonzalez viewed it as a big win when AB 539, which would actually reinstate old limits on interest rates that have not been used since 1985, passed in the Assembly. Gonzalez urged people at the June event to put pressure on their state Senators so that those protections might finally be put in place after years of advocacy. There are caps on interest rates for loans below $2,500 and above $10,000 in California. The Consumer Financial Protections Bureau (CFPB) and Calif. Department of Business Oversight (DBO) found many predatory practices from lenders, including requiring borrowers take out loans just above the $2,500 threshold so lenders could legally SEE LORENA LOANS, Page 5