By Delle Willett

Hillcrest firm leaves its mark on America’s Finest City

The folks at KTU+A Planning and Landscape Architecture use their hands and minds to create award-winning, creative and sustainable projects locally and beyond. But their hearts belong to Uptown.

Founded 47 years ago this July by landscape architects Frank Kawasaki and Michael Theilacker as Kawasaki Theilacker & Associates (KT&A) and joined shortly thereafter by Don Ueno, the firm’s first official office was at Fourth and Robinson avenues in Hillcrest. Outgrowing this office, the firm moved in 1988 to Governor Business Park and changed its name to KTU+A.

These days, their office is located at 3916 Normal St. in a building that was once the Farmer Brothers’ Coffee warehouse and distribution center (1944), and more recently, home of the San Diego LGBT Community Center.

All three original principals retired in the mid-2000s; today, the principals are Kurt Carlson, Sharon Singleton and Mike Singleton, who have been with the firm since 1981, ‘85 and ’87, respectively.

“Since 1999, this has been our community. Our offices have been in the Uptown area going back to the ’70s and we’ve always been involved in the community, whether its providing design input or volunteering for local boards and committees,” Mike said.

For example, KTU+A works to activate the space around their office every year with Bike-to-Work Day, Parking Day and CicloSDias events. They were instrumental in getting a crosswalk and traffic light at the intersection of Normal Street and University Avenue and also designed the median in front of their building.

Most recently, KTU+A played a major role in visualizing, planning and implementing “Re-imagine Normal Street,” a four-day event in May that demonstrated how Normal Street (and other streets) can be transformed from one that is dominantly auto-centric to a place that offers people the opportunity to safely and pleasantly live outside of their home, office and car.

“We’ve never had a business model that’s just based on profits; we think more along the lines of: What do we want to accomplish? Are we doing things that are really interesting to ourselves and our staff? How are we positively changing the environment? What are we doing for the community?” Mike explained.

Giving back

Volunteering is a KTU+A core value, with all three principals serving on so many local committees and national professional organizations it’s a wonder they get any work done. “You need to be part of the community; you have to give something back by being involved and contributing,” Mike said.

Some of the local organizations Mike has been involved with include Uptown Planners, Balboa Park Committee, Hillcrest Business Association and Hillcrest Community Development Corp.

In addition to her service on a number of architecture and engineering boards and committees, as well as volunteer positions with her children’s schools in Uptown and Point Loma, Sharon has also volunteered side-by-side with her daughters through MADCAPS, a local philanthropic group.

And Kurt is involved in his own community as well where he sits on the Carmel Mountain Ranch Community Council, an appointed member of the city of San Diego Municipal Golf Committee, a judge for the California Landscape Contractor Association Beautification awards, and the ACE mentoring program at Kearny High School, which introduces high school students to careers in architecture, construction management, engineering, landscape architecture and other disciplines.

Going greener

Mike and Sharon Singleton have lived in North Park and Mission Hills for 30 years and recently moved to Bankers Hill, where they are restoring a historic home designed by Louis Gill. With one car between them, they bike and walk as much as possible.

And with a good 60 percent of the staff living nearby, many also walk or bike to work. “I feel good when we have more bikes on our bike rack than cars in our parking lot,” Sharon said.

Landscape architects have historically been defined as stewards of the land. However, in today’s world, this definition is not sufficient. Landscape architects and planners have a much broader role to play — that of advocates for complete communities and the people who live in these communities.

“We take this responsibility very seriously through the professional services we offer,” Sharon said.

With 38 employees, KTU+A is a collaboration of planners, transportation specialists, landscape architects, GIS analysts, irrigation designers and graphic artists who work together in three primary departments: Landscape Architecture, Planning and Federal Planning.

The Federal Planning department offers planning services primarily to the Navy and Marine Corps, with the majority of their work in the Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC) Southwest and Southeast footprints. Federal plans address the physical, social, environmental and economic requirements for military and civilian personnel, their families, and the neighboring communities. The land-use and facility requirements include training, administration, maintenance, housing, schools, community support, roads, bridges and utilities.

One of KTU+A’s largest projects was converting NAS Miramar to a Marine Corps station — a $1.5 billion construction project. They did all of the initial site planning, land-use planning, designing guidelines and way-finding programs.

Landscaping projects

Under the direction of Kurt, the Landscape Architecture department establishes a vision, develops a design and produces construction plans for projects that are built, including theme parks, housing, K-12 and higher education; hotels and resorts; mixed-use office buildings; retail; health care; assisted living and senior housing; and public works, including streets, libraries, and public safety facilities.

The landscape staff enjoys working in collaboration with architects, engineers, designers and general contractors to see the projects from conception through construction. You can see their touches at The Grand Del Mar, USD’s Maher Mall and Fowler Field, Aquatica Water Park, SeaWorld, Mission Trails Park and many other parks throughout the county.

Planning tasks

Much of the work of the Planning Department, under the direction of Mike, is visionary in nature. “We are creating the larger-scale plans for our public agencies and private developers,” Mike said.

These plans include bicycle, trail and pedestrian master plans to improve non-motorized connections; transportation and transit plans that analyze regional transportation options; land-use plans that identify areas for living, working, learning and playing; recreation plans that analyze existing and identify future park and open space areas; and resource plans that focus on habitat restoration, aesthetics, visual assessments, water conservation, and historic preservation and interpretation.

Sharon is responsible for business development and marketing, developing complex proposals, and competing with landscape architecture firms from around the country. Building and keeping good solid relationships also means repeat business with many of the private developers, public agencies, architects and engineers in the region.

The firm encourages its staff, including the firm’s principals, to seek out matters of the heart – projects they will grow professionally in by doing.

For Mike, it’s “mobility planning” — safe bike paths, trails, public transportation. A big current project is the Mid-Coast Trolley Extension that will run from Old Town to University City via the University of California San Diego. Another is the Lemon Grove Promenade and trail projects, which include the award-winning Main Street Promenade, and a recently envisioned 2.5-mile linear park and trail system along the trolley rail corridor that will run from the edge of Lemon Grove’s city limits to the Promenade, which is located in the downtown area along the rail corridor.

For Sharon, it’s creating exciting environments and healthy places to get people outside, out of their cars, away from their computers, off their cell phones, and enjoying time with their family and friends. She is inspired by the next generation of landscape architects and planners in the office who are putting their creativity to work by implementing tactical urbanism principles in their projects and volunteer efforts.

For Kurt, who always imagined he’d be a sports professional, it’s designing exciting environments — outdoor spaces like parks, golf courses and sports fields. A favorite project is The Grand Del Mar, a five-star resort in Del Mar. Others include the Del Mar, Loma Santa Fe and Carmel Mountain Country Clubs.

Leaving a ‘legacy’

With so many successful years in business, KTU+A has “legacy” projects, which include Shelter Island, segments of the Embarcadero, the ferry landing, University of San Diego, UCSD and San Diego State University, the Gaslamp Quarter and habitats at the San Diego Zoo.

A legacy project within walking distance of their office is a park created by Michael Theilacker in the early ’80s at the entrance to Scripps Mercy Hospital. “It’s such a joy to see how it’s used. There are always people enjoying the water feature and using the park, people looking down from the rooms into the park … and the trees have matured beautifully,” Sharon said.

Projects KTU+A is looking forward to seeing completed in the near future: the reconfiguration of the North Course at Torrey Pines Golf Course; Colachis Plaza at USD; the waterfront hotels at Liberty Station; the Mid-Coast Trolley extension; parks along the Chula Vista Bayfront; Connect Main Street in Lemon Grove; portions of the Coastal Rail Trail; the Mission Trails Regional Park Master Plan; and someday, maybe . . . a new master plan for Fiesta Island.

—Delle Willett has been a marketing and public relations professional for over 30 years, with an emphasis on conservation of the environment. She can be reached at [email protected].