By all accounts, downtown now annually adds new housing at a feverish pace. In 2002, one of every four new condominiums sold in Southern California (from Ventura County to the Mexican border) was in downtown San Diego.

The area once largely abandoned and empty, is expected to add between 1,000 and 2,000 new housing units annually for years to come.

"That’s not something that’s happening in the rest of the state," said Kelly Cunningham, an economist at the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce.

However, with that boom could come an unintended aftermath: Downtown could become a bedroom community, a sort of inside-out, sky-high version of the suburban model that sparked the great urban gutting decades ago.

The chic appeal of downtown hasn’t yet rubbed off on the commercial market, and community groups and civic organizations say office space is desperately needed to balance growth in what is again becoming the region’s fulcrum.

Less than 17 percent of San Diego’s office space is in downtown. Only Los Angeles’ ratio is worse among the top 20 metropolitan areas in the country. By comparison, San Francisco’s rate is 65 percent and Portland’s is 50 percent.

But a few factors incite optimism among observers.

First: Downtown is trendy. As more executives and their employees move downtown, the hope among planners and downtown advocates is that these executives will relocate their businesses to the region’s urban core.

And the region’s housing center is shifting. As the skyscrapers of downtown and the freshly graded subdivisions of South County continue to shoulder a good deal of the region’s new-housing burden, observers predict the job center will start to shift south with it.

In the last seven years, mid-county’s absorption rates have been 60 percent, according a report from Burnham Real Estate Services. Meanwhile, North County has experienced absorption rates of 26 percent and South County 13 percent.

Residents say the current of workers bustling through the area in the daytime will invigorate the area, giving it breath 24 hours a day. Plus, they say the crowds will keep retail shops and restaurants healthy and shoo the unsavory-types out of the parks.

Residents of East Village came out in support of incorporating office space with East Village Square, the mixed-use development slated to go outside the ballpark and to be master planned by the Padres. Developers are working on adding office to the mix.

"We’re going to push that and do everything we can to do it," said Peter Hall, president of Centre City Development Corp., the city of San Diego’s downtown development arm. "We hope it’s the beginning of a new trend."

It’s been more than a decade since a new office tower went up in downtown. But now, many think the time is right for office again downtown.

Lankford & Associates was to have broken ground on the first of what could be several new office towers.

Jason Wood of Cisterra Partners believes the market is right for more square footage to be added downtown because it’s been so long since a new tower went up and because of the excitement that’s been created by Petco Park (set to see its first game in April), the residential boom and the viability of the Gaslamp Quarter.

"We definitely see some general interest," Wood said.

Government, law and tourism form the core of downtown employers, while financial services also contribute to the mix and officials are also hoping to draw some technology companies.

Some of the biggest employers downtown include Sempra Energy (NYSE: SRE), San Diego Marriott Hotel & Marina, Manchester Grand Hyatt San Diego and Golden Eagle Insurance Corp.

By 2005, the San Diego Association of Governments expects that service jobs will account for 36 percent of all downtown employment. A close second on that list is government, which will employ 35 percent of all workers. Retail trade will account for about 12 percent, while manufacturing employs about 5 percent of workers.

The commercial market downtown has remained strong through the tough economic times. So far, much of business growth has come from companies already downtown, such as Arrowhead General Insurance Agency.

Groups such as CCDC, the city of San Diego, the Downtown San Diego Partnership and the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corp. are all engaged in programs to draw more businesses into the region’s urban core.

"We are looking for balance downtown, not just a bedroom community," said Barbara Warden of the Downtown San Diego Partnership. "I think we’re getting there."

A key to that goal, some believe, is the addition of executive housing, something downtown has for the first time, according to the Burnham report. Executive housing brings senior management and other business decision-makers to downtown and makes them more likely to relocate their businesses there.

The downtown resident profile fits the bill for executive housing, says the Burnham report. The average resident is a baby boomer or older. Most are working couples with no children and one of two works downtown.

Additionally, the thinking goes that as more people fill downtown, more will expect downtown employment.

But while the housing market remains strong, focusing on business retention takes precedent over business attraction during tougher economic times.

"It’s really hard to talk about doing attraction in one area while you are focusing on retention in other areas,"said Andrea Moser of the EDC.

Also on the slate is a possible reconfiguration of City Hall.

Officials at the Downtown Partnership went to City Council in early fall with a proposal to rework the current Civic Center, City Hall and Golden Hall. The proposal is still 10 or 15 years away from fruition, Warden said, but it would feature all new buildings.

There’s no doubt about it, downtown steals the spotlight from what’s happening around the rest of central San Diego. Drawing technology companies could be tough though, as most have flocked to the sprawling, technology-friendly campuses of the University Towne Center and Carmel Valley regions rather than the high-rises of downtown. But now, downtown isn’t losing out to tenants such as law firms, which were splitting or moving operations from downtown toward the Carmel Valley area to be closer to clients during the tech boom.

"Our whole mantra this year has been, ‘Holding our own,’" Moser said.

As far as the rest of central San Diego goes, the City of Villages program adopted by the San Diego City Council could spur a new round of urban reinvestment. The plan, based on so-called "smart growth" models, looks back toward older urban neighborhoods to create walkable, transit-friendly developments.

Part of this equation will be infill housing development as the city encourages more development in the existing neighborhoods rather than previously untouched land.

Also, folks at the EDC are promoting development in Mid-City and are excited about the City Heights redevelopment project already underway.

Del Mar Heights has also become somewhat of a hot area, as international law firm Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker LLP, a new arrival to San Diego, has taken over Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison LLP’s old digs.

Meanwhile, some of Kearny Mesa’s more recognizable businesses have either recently built new offices or are in the construction process including Jack in the Box (NYSE: JBX) and California Coastal Credit Union.