The Point Loma Association, a nonprofit that organizes various beautification and outreach projects in the peninsula community, outlined some of its projects while looking back at the previous year during its “Review With a View” event.
of the volunteer organization who gathered July 23 at the Fermanian Conference Center at Point Loma Nazarene University highlighted a litany of landscaping projects and the much-anticipated Point Loma gateway sign.
PLA board member Branden Boysen showed a rendering of what the planned sign could look like.
Earlier this year, the PLA described plans to place the sign on the median south of the intersection of Rosecrans and Lytton streets.
JT Barr, managing partner of the association, told the Point Loma-OB Monthly in the spring that the idea for the sign resulted from a discussion with the board and PLA about a visual enhancement they would like to see.
The group already had installed the Village Lights in 2022, featuring a canopy of lights strung across Rosecrans between Talbot and Canon streets. That project also includes pavers and plaques to commemorate local residents, sites and donors.
The planned gateway sign’s cursive font spelling out “Point Loma” evokes local history “while creating brand consistency between all our community gateways,” Barr said. “The lettering rests on an oversized historic acorn light fixture,” which he said draws inspiration from the Loma Portal community.
“Point Loma already has existing entry signs at Nimitz Boulevard and Harbor Drive,” Barr said. “Rosecrans Street is the last remaining prominent avenue into the Point Loma community that does not have some kind of monument that reinforces a sense of arrival.”
“We thought it would be fantastic and appropriate to have a sign like this to let people know they were in Point Loma,” Boysen said.
The group hopes to install the sign by fall 2025.
Treasurer Pete Buerger said he expects the project’s cost to be more than a half-million dollars, though he said numbers would be more concrete when the group seeks bids from contractors.
“We don’t know how much it’s really going to cost until the city [of San Diego] gets done with the permitting, and I’m sure we’ll have costs with SDG&E to put a new meter up and all that,” Buerger added.
He said a major donor has committed most of the money needed for the project. He did not identify the donor.
Incoming association Chairwoman Beth Roach noted that the PLA is “a 100 percent volunteer-led organization, and we’ve been able to achieve so much in Point Loma and Ocean Beach over the decades due to people who care and want to be involved. We can accomplish so much when we all come together for our community.”
Board member Linda Weber discussed the organization’s beautification projects in the past year, wearing a green vest to honor the group’s Mean Green Team, a volunteer task force that works on various landscaping projects across 21 public sites on the peninsula every Friday.
“In the last 12 months, our team completed over 3,300 volunteer hours,” Weber said. “We also have specialty teams, our graffiti busters are always on call to clean up graffiti faster than the city can, our trash detail puts in time to pick up roadside litter and abandoned homeless encampment trash, and we also promote the city’s Get It Done app, which we use to report homeless camps, trash dumping, broken street lamps and that sort of thing.”
Weber also listed several partner projects from the past year, including a trash pickup with Point Loma Nazarene University in the Sunset Cliffs Natural Park area. She noted a Climate Action Day coordinated with California Assemblywoman Tasha Boerner (D-Encinitas) — whose 77th District includes Point Loma and Ocean Beach — in which 67 volunteers planted drought-tolerant plants at the submarine memorial at Liberty Station’s NTC Park. The state awarded the PLA $2,500 for that effort.
Weber also commended The Peninsula Alliance — a nonprofit that s community enhancement, beautification, charitable and education projects — for purchasing “much-needed” tools during the year.
Weber pointed out the DesBorder beach cleanup and recycling effort along the coast, which kicks off from 8 to 11 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 3, at Sunset Cliffs Natural Park in Point Loma with help from the Mean Green Team. Funds from collected recycled materials are to be used to buy books for schools and other area groups in need.
The PLA reported a member retention rate of more than 80 percent, though the number of hip households decreased from 569 to 534 over the past year.
On the other hand, business hips increased 11 percent and revenue from business hips rose 17 percent, according to board member Alexandra Watkins, who oversees business hips for the PLA.
Watkins attributed the growth partly to the introduction of monthly business mixers in January.
Buerger said the PLA raised almost $200,000 in net revenue in fiscal 2023-24.
“Nearly half of our funds come from the annual dinner,” he said. “That includes sponsorship, ticket sales and donations that are made in connection with the event. About 40 percent of our revenue comes from just hips — people that renew year in and year out, people that are new, people that are coming back.”
Since the PLA is a volunteer association, none of its funds are spent on payroll costs, Buerger said. Rather, 90 percent is spent on its community efforts, with the remaining 10 percent going toward istrative fees and insurance, he said.
“We take pride in how fiscally oriented we are,” Buerger said. “Our bylaws say we can’t commit to a project until we understand how we are going to pay for that project.”
Buerger said the group grew its cash balance by nearly $55,000 in the past year and that it would hold on to that money for projects.
This year’s annual fundraising dinner is titled the “Gateway Gala,” with the goal of raising more money for the Point Loma sign project. The event will be from 5 to 9 p.m. Monday, Oct. 14, at the Kona Kai resort on Shelter Island and will feature a champagne reception and live music.
For tickets and more information, visit pointloma.org/the-gateway-gala.
