Ryan Thorsen used to drive past the same five buildings on his way to work and wonder why nobody had bothered with them. Seven acres of overgrown grass and boarded-up 1920s officers' quarters, sitting at the Rosecrans Street entrance to Liberty Station, a block from where the Navy once housed the admirals who ran the training center.
"I drove by all the time. I'm a Point Loma resident, and I love it here. I think it's such a special community, and it didn't make sense to me that no one had done something to all of these buildings."
That was Thorsen talking to NBC 7 in September 2024, right after he signed the lease. He called the project The Admiral: a restaurant, a bakery and market called the Canteen, a screen-free game room, a speakeasy in the old guardhouse, and a two-story 1923 event venue with a bed and breakfast upstairs. The pitch was a $15 million restoration, construction starting in 2025, doors open by summer 2026.
Summer 2026 came and went. As of the most recent reporting, from late July, shovels still hadn't hit the ground. The budget has climbed to roughly $20 million. And the finish line has split into three separate phases, with the first wrapping in late summer or fall of 2027 and the last not done until 2028.
If you live on this peninsula and have been holding off on a reason to walk that stretch of Rosecrans, waiting for The Admiral isn't the move right now. But that's not actually the interesting part of this story. The interesting part is what happened while everyone was watching that corner and waiting.
The Buildings That Slow Everything Down
The Admiral's slippage isn't really about Thorsen, or money, or ambition. It's about what happens when a project has to touch a building the government has decided matters.
The five houses that make up The Admiral are historic structures, which means the renovation legally counts as "rehabilitation" under federal preservation guidelines rather than a straightforward remodel. That designation buys some flexibility, but it also means every wiring run, every re-roofed section, every repainted wall goes through a review process that a strip-mall build-out never has to touch.
The Joan and Irwin Jacobs Performing Arts Center, Cygnet Theatre's new home a few blocks away, ran into the same wall. The idea to turn the old Naval Building 178 into a theater first came up in 2008. It took until 2018 for Cygnet to secure the site, and another five years of donor fundraising and acoustic engineering, eight inches of concrete were poured just to keep flyover noise from cutting off the final act of a play, before the $43.5 million venue finally opened its doors in September 2025. Eight years, start to finish, for a single building.
That's the pattern worth knowing if you live here: on this peninsula, a historic address is a multi-year commitment no matter who's behind it or how much money they're willing to spend. The Admiral isn't behind schedule because something went wrong. It's on the same clock every historic project on this peninsula has run on.
What Didn't Wait
While the marquee project sat in permitting, the corner of Liberty Station across from Con Pane quietly changed hands twice in under two years, because nothing about that suite required a preservation review.
Grandson Steaks opened there in April, in a space that had briefly housed chef Phillip Esteban's Wildflour Delicatessen before that concept closed roughly a year after its own debut. Owner Roger Cañez, who also runs Brasa Norte in National City and Roger's Mariscos, built the pitch around a simple gap: real steak, without the markup. A 12-ounce ribeye runs $34 for Choice or $44 for Prime, sourced from Brandt Beef and Brawley Beef out of the Imperial Valley. The Ribeye Family Fest, enough ribeye, birria, adobada, guacamole and tortillas for four people, runs $79 or $99. The room seats about 130, with 98 of those outdoors on the patio. No preservation review, no acoustic engineering, no phased timeline. Lease signed, kitchen built, doors open.
Cygnet Theatre's calendar tells a similar story from the other direction. The company's first full season at The Joan ran from September 2025 through July of this year and was projected to draw more than 50,000 visitors annually to a stretch of Liberty Station that used to go dark once the art galleries closed for the night. That first season is already over. The company is now into its second season at the new venue, which began this past July, proof that the eight-year wait for the building produced something that's actually being used, not just a nice ribbon-cutting photo.
What The Calendar Already Delivered This Month
If you were anywhere near Liberty Station this past Saturday, September 12, you didn't need to wait on any of this. Three separate events landed on the same day. Stone Brewing turned its World Bistro & Gardens location into a free, all-ages party for the brand's 30th anniversary, arcade games, pet adoptions, live music, and 90s movies running from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., the first time in the brewery's history that the anniversary celebration opened to the public without a ticket. A few hundred feet away, the Moment Bicycles San Diego Triathlon Classic had athletes moving through the grounds starting at 6:30 in the morning. And over at Sunset Cliffs, Hodad's presented its annual auto show starting at 10 a.m.
The calendar isn't done yet this month. DogFest Southwest lands at Liberty Station on September 19, and if the timeline holds, a new restaurant called El Punto should open sometime around October at 2885 Perry Road, in the former El Jardin Cantina space. That one's worth watching for a different reason than The Admiral: it's coming from Gerald Torres Macy, the founder of City Tacos, who already runs locations in North Park, Pacific Beach, Encinitas, La Mesa, Sorrento Valley and the Ballpark district. A two-month runway for an operator who's opened this many locations before is a realistic date, not a hopeful one.
The Corner Still Waiting Its Turn
Half a mile east, on Shelter Island, two more projects are aiming for this year without a confirmed opening date yet. The Boatyard is set to take over the old Fiddler's Green space at 2760 Shelter Island Drive, the nautical restaurant that closed in 2023 after health code violations and sat dark for over a year. The team pairs Executive Chef Jason McLeod, who cut his teeth at Ironside Fish & Oyster, Born & Raised and Morning Glory, with designer Paul Basile, known locally for Morning Glory and Puesto. As of this spring's reporting, the target was still summer 2026.
A few doors down, the Cesarina Restaurant Group, the team behind Cesarina on Voltaire and Elvira in Ocean Beach, is building out a third concept called Il Corallino at 1101 Scott Street, a seafood-forward Roman menu that puts it in direct conversation with The Boatyard just steps away. That one was also targeting early summer in interviews from this spring.
Neither is a historic-building project in the way The Admiral is, so there's no structural reason to expect an Admiral-length delay. But neither has announced an opening date yet, and the summer windows both teams pointed to back in the spring are closing fast, which is worth knowing if you've been planning a dinner around either one.
The Honest Read
Here's what two years of watching this peninsula's build-out actually tells you: the projects tied to a landmark address move on a landmark's timeline, and everything else moves on a lease's timeline. The Admiral will eventually open, and when it does, seven acres of restored gardens and skyline views will be worth the wait. But if you've been treating that project as the signal for whether Liberty Station has "arrived," you've been watching the wrong corner. Grandson Steaks already proved there's a dinner crowd here on a Tuesday night. The Joan already proved 50,000 people a year will show up for a show. The calendar this month already proved the peninsula can fill a Saturday three times over without any help from a project that's still two years out.
If you're thinking about what any of this means for a home near Liberty Station, or just want a second opinion from someone who tracks this corridor closely, Ben Smith is always happy to talk it through. No pressure, just a real conversation about the neighborhood you already call home.
