Jennie Strangman has been coming to the same stretch of Chula Vista waterfront for years, mostly for what she calls the water, the squirrels, and the ducks. When the Port of San Diego revealed plans to bulldoze part of that space for a bigger, fancier park, she worried it would disappear. Then she saw the renderings and relaxed a little. "Wow, that's a lot," she told NBC San Diego when she learned the park she loves is set to double in size.
Here's what she and most of her neighbors don't fully know yet: that doubling isn't one project on one timeline. It's two projects, and only one of them currently has a budget.
If you live in Chula Vista and you've been hearing "the bayfront is finally happening" for the better part of two years, you're not wrong. But the phrase hides a split that matters if you're planning your weekends around it. Some of the waterfront is done and free to walk into right now. Some of it is a fenced construction zone with a firm finish date. And a chunk of the acreage everyone keeps citing when they talk about "25 acres" doesn't have a funding source attached to it yet. Treating all three as the same "bayfront project" is how you end up driving to a park that's still a dirt lot.
The Part That's Already Open
Start with what's genuinely finished. Sweetwater Park, the 39-acre stretch that opened in 2025, is open, landscaped, and connected to the rest of the bayfront by the Sweetwater Bicycle Path and Promenade, a route that links the park to the marinas, the Living Coast Discovery Center, and the Sun Outdoors San Diego Bay RV resort. The path includes a truss pedestrian bridge over the F and G Street Marsh inlet and overlook areas built for actually stopping to look at the bay, not just passing through, according to the Port of San Diego's own project page. It was funded in part by an Urban Greening Grant from the California Natural Resources Agency, which is a different funding pool entirely from what's paying for the park expansion next door.
Then there's the Gaylord Pacific Resort itself. The construction fences around the $1.3 billion, 1,600-room property came down before the hotel's official May 15, 2025 opening, and the grounds have been open to the public since, no reservation or day pass required. That's worth remembering because most people assume a resort of that size means a private compound. It doesn't. You can walk the public promenade, and through August 16 you can catch the DC-themed summer event Gaylord Pacific is running this year, before it wraps for the season.
So if your mental picture of the bayfront is "still under construction," that picture is already a year out of date for this part of it.
The Park Everyone Assumes Is One Project
Now the part that isn't finished, and where the confusion actually lives.
What used to be Bayside Park is becoming Harbor Park, and the headline number everywhere is that it's doubling from roughly 12 acres to roughly 25. Local coverage of the March 3, 2026 groundbreaking treated that as a single, unified expansion. It isn't. The Port structured it as two separate phases, South and North, and as of this year only one of them has a real budget behind it.
| South Phase | North Phase | |
|---|---|---|
| Groundbreaking | March 3, 2026 | Not yet scheduled |
| Total budget | $15 million | Not fully funded |
| Coastal Conservancy grant share | up to $2.26 million | $4.34 million, earmarked for a future beach and boat launch, not general park construction |
| What it delivers | Nautical-themed playground, new park entrance off the H Street roundabout | The remaining acreage needed to reach 25 total |
| Target completion | Playground by end of 2026, splash pad by spring 2027 | No date announced |
The $15 million South Phase, the one with the nautical playground and the splash pad, is real and moving. It's funded in part by a $6.6 million grant from the California Coastal Conservancy, but even within that grant, most of the money isn't going to the park amenities people picture when they hear "Harbor Park." Only $2.26 million of it is earmarked for the South Phase build-out. The remaining $4.34 million is set aside for a future beach and boat launch project planned for the park's north end, according to the Port's own press release. That's a different project, on a different timeline, competing for the same acreage.
Reporters asked the obvious follow-up question at the groundbreaking: what about the other half, the part that actually gets you from 12 acres to 25? KPBS got the honest answer: the Port has yet to identify funding for the North Phase.
That single sentence changes what "Harbor Park is doubling in size" should mean to you as a resident this year. It means a nautical playground and a splash pad are genuinely coming, on the timeline the Port has published. It does not mean the full 25 acres of park space arrives on the same schedule, because half the land needed to get there is still waiting on a funding source that doesn't exist yet.
Why This Distinction Actually Matters to You
None of this is a complaint about the pace of government projects. It's a map. If you're the kind of Chula Vista resident who checks in on the bayfront every few months expecting visible progress, knowing which half you're looking at saves you a wasted trip and a wrong assumption.
Right now, in August 2026, here's what that map looks like on the ground:
- Sweetwater Park and the Gaylord grounds: finished, open, free, and worth the walk any day of the week.
- Harbor Park South Phase: an active construction site next to the Gaylord's south side. The playground is targeted for completion by the end of this year, the splash pad by spring 2027. Expect fencing and equipment until then, not a finished amenity.
- Harbor Park North Phase: still a concept on a rendering. No groundbreaking date, no confirmed budget beyond the boat launch earmark. Don't build a weekend plan around it yet.
What's Actually Worth Timing This Month
A few dates are worth putting on the calendar while this transition is happening.
The DC-themed summer event at Gaylord Pacific runs through August 16, so this is genuinely the closing week if you want to catch it before it's gone for the season. The resort's public grounds and promenade stay open year round regardless.
Over in East Chula Vista, Côta Vera's Central Square Park has been hosting Food Truck Fridays and live music through the summer, a lower-key, inland counterpart to the bayfront's bigger-ticket programming. It's also where the community's 3rd Annual Rewind Festival lands on Saturday, September 12, a free, family-friendly throwback event with tribute acts including Fooz Fighters, No Duh, and Temptation, plus a beer garden and an artisan village of local makers, according to the event listing on Eventbrite.
If you want a full loop, pair a morning at Sweetwater Park with the bike path down to the Living Coast Discovery Center, then swing past the Gaylord's public grounds on your way back. You'll pass right by the Harbor Park South Phase fencing, which is your reminder that the next visible milestone there is the playground, not the whole 25 acres.
The Real Takeaway
Chula Vista's bayfront has spent over a decade as a promise. What's different about this specific month is that the promise has split into pieces you can actually track separately: a finished piece, a funded piece with a deadline, and an unfunded piece that's still just a line on a map. Knowing which is which is the difference between being pleasantly surprised by a splash pad next spring and being annoyed that the "new 25-acre park" you were told about isn't there yet.
If you're weighing what a home near this stretch of the bayfront is actually worth, both today and as these phases complete over the next year, that's exactly the kind of neighborhood-level nuance Edna Mitchell tracks for clients buying, selling, or just trying to understand how Chula Vista is changing under their feet. Reach out for a conversation about your corner of the South Bay, no matter which phase it's in.
