On the Move

A crew hoists a 45,000 lb. Senegal Date Palm tree at the CAC Tuesday using a massive crane. The tree will eventually sit farther north at the CAC. The work is part of the Waterfront Park project.

It’s not just you. A tree did just move at the County Administration Center. A few, actually.

Construction crews at the County Administration Center began unearthing and moving huge palm trees Tuesday morning. They will be preserved and replanted onsite as part of the new Waterfront Park project.

The first trees to move were two enormous, historic Senegal Date Palm trees which date back to the CAC’s landscape plans developed by prominent landscape architect Roland Hoyt in 1939.

The trees are enormous, weighing about 45,000 lbs. and 95,000 lbs. each. It took a 300-ton crane and to lift them from where they sat along Ash Street on the far south side of the CAC property. The crane then placed the trees onto a truck, which carried them to a new temporary home. Under the new park plan, they will be replanted farther north in a “historic core” area on the CAC’s West lawn.

In the meantime, the trees will live in what look like oversized wooden planter boxes that were used to move them to the southwest side of the building. Project Manager Suzanne Evans said an arborist determined the trees would be OK living in the boxes for the next year until they can be permanently replanted.

More trees will likely be preserved as part of the project and a total of 150 new trees will be added to the CAC grounds. A few trees were removed, most of them dying, past their prime or considered noxious or invasive. Overall, the CAC will have far more trees when the new park is completed, Evans said.

County officials offered some trees that could not be used onsite to the San Diego Zoo and San Diego Botanical Garden and both are considering it, said Leonard Pinson, Property Manager for the CAC.

The first phase of the project, which will include a new underground parking structure on the south side, is expected to be completed in Sept. 2013. The second phase, which will include the surface improvements and the park on the north side, will be done in spring 2014.

For more information, visit the Waterfront Park Project page. 

Crews prepare to move a massive palm tree from the far southern end of the CAC. The Senegal Date Palm tree has been at the CAC since 1939 and will be preserved in a new location.