Huge mixed-use tower opens

 Holland Partner Group is thrilled to unveil West, the first-of-its-kind multi mixed-use tower in San Diego. Located at 1011 Union Street, this 37-story landmark is set to redefine urban living and working, with its unprecedented blend of residential, office, and retail spaces.

West stands as a testament to San Diego’s modern urban development, featuring 431 residential units, 289,000 sq. ft. of office space, and 10,000 sq. ft. of prime retail space. This represents a new vision for Downtown, fostering a walkable, connected community that blends the best of living, working, and leisure with transit adjacency.

Some residents have already moved in plus HNTB Corporation and HDR Engineering, Inc. secured office space leases.

West is the first tower completed in a planned three-city-block redevelopment by Holland Partner Group. The second project, The Torrey, is currently under construction and will be home to Downtown’s first Whole Foods Market upon completion in mid-2026. The three blocks will be linked by a landscape enhanced pedestrian “green street” along Union Street at final completion.

Business news

Conrad Prebys Foundation leases floor of Little Italy building

DivcoWest, a DivCore Capital company, and its partner Ocean West Capital Partners LLC, announced that the Conrad Prebys Foundation, a $1.2 billion San Diego-based nonprofit, signed a lease for a full floor at Kettner & Ash, in the heart of San Diego’s Little Italy neighborhood. Derek Hulse and Morgan Reno of Cushman & Wakefield represented the landlord.

Kettner & Ash is a 123,000 s.f. fully modernized midrise office building at 1420 Kettner Boulevard. DivcoWest and Ocean West purchased the building in late 2017, becoming only the second owners in the last 63 years. They immediately began an extensive Gensler-designed renovation including a contemporary façade with an energy-efficient clear glass wall curtain.

Prebys Foundation is the sixth tenant to call the building home under the new owners. In October 2018, co-working specialist Spaces signed a long-term lease for three floors totaling 43,540 s.f. Boston-based general contractor Suffolk Construction, HR software provider Paycom, national architect Perkins & Will, and Birdrock Coffee Roasters have also signed.

Chuck Jones Gallery opens in Seaport Village

In time for Comic-Con, the Chuck Jones Gallery pop-up opened in Seaport Village next to Mike Hess Taphouse. The pop art gallery celebrating the work of legendary animator Chuck Jones will soon have a permanent home at 809 W. Harbor Drive. With hours from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., with an earlier closure at 7 p.m. on Sundays.

New cocktail bar at Seaport

Inspired by Mexico City’s hospitality and cocktail culture, the acclaimed team behind puesto y Marisi opened Roma Norte in Seaport Village. The technique driven cocktail menu of eight drinks with four non-alcoholic beverages use modern methods like forced carbonation, nitro muddling, clarification via centrifuge and lacto-fermentation. Plus, the bar serves small plates of Latin American food.

Houston TX Hot Chicken to open in Gaslamp

Houston TX Hot Chicken, industry leader in quality, never-frozen fried chicken is expanding its stores throughout the state of California. On Sept. 21, the restaurant chain is opening its third California location at 238 Fifth Avenue in San Diego. This will be the brand’s 20th location nationwide.

Operating hours for the San Diego location are from 10:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, and 10:30 a.m. to 2 a.m. Friday and Saturday. 

Coco Maya celebrates two years

Coco Maya has brought Little Italy coastal cuisine, Josper-oven cooked meats, and lively libations for nearly two years now. Raise a glass and toast to Coco Maya’s official anniversary on Tuesday, July 16th, and join as they’ll celebrate with their infamous daily brunch and two special offerings! The Coco Maya team is grateful for their fans and the Little Italy community, who have made this a prosperous two years.

Pendry voted favorite hotel in SD

Pendry San Diego has been recognized as the No. 1 Favorite Hotel in San Diego in Travel + Leisure’s 2024 World’s Best Awards!

Each year, Travel + Leisure recognizes the top hotels, islands, cities, cruise lines, airlines, spas, and more around the globe, according to the results of the Travel + Leisure World’s Best Awards 2024 readers’ survey.

Pendry San Diego is a shining beacon in the city’s renowned Gaslamp Quarter and the debut property from Pendry Hotels & Resorts.

From the halls of government

Active recreation area opens at Waterfront Park

A new active recreation area opened in the northeast corner of Waterfront Park featuring a basketball court, two pickleball courts, a five-station fitness apparatus, table tennis, a fenced off-leash dog area with agility equipment, benches and drinking fountains. The active recreation area will be open daily from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. Equipment check-out will be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. during summer hours and from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. from fall to spring. Drought-tolerant trees and plants line the perimeter of the 1.25-acre recreation area.

Water rates rise, but not so high

El San Diego County Water Authority's Board of Directors approved a 14% increase in wholesale water rates for next year, while delaying a $7 million capital project and cutting its budget by another $2 million. This came after Mayor Todd Gloria negotiated with the agency which had initially planned to increase rates by 18 to 24.5%. The increased cost is blamed on rising prices at Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and the need to buy water from other suppliers.

County cracks down on Wall Street buying homes

The County Board of Supervisors approved Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer’s plan to crack down on Wall Street investors manipulating the local housing market and increasing the cost of living.

In recent years, private equity giants and large corporations are increasingly buying up the nation’s scarce supply of homes, including in the San Diego region — driving up prices for their own profit and making the housing affordability crisis worse.

This practice not only puts homeownership out of reach for many hopeful buyers but also undermines the character, stability and diversity of San Diego neighborhoods.

Supervisor Lawson-Remer’s accepted a friendly amendment from Supervisor Jim Desmond to include examining townhouses, condos in addition to single family homes, add a threshold number of 25 on what is considered a mom-and-pop business, and the sequencing. The policy aims to hold corporate bad actors accountable, protect communities from illegal business practices, and safeguard housing options for first-time homebuyers and working families.

Calif. bans forced outings at schools

Legislation introduced by Assemblyman Chris Ward, AB 1955, was signed into law barring school districts from instituting policies seeking to forcibly out students. Since 2023, over a dozen school districts have proposed or implemented policies requiring teachers to inform parents if their child identifies as transgender or requests to be identified by a different name or pronouns at school. The Support Academic Futures & Educators for Today’s Youth (SAFETY) Act faced severe pushback from parental rights and anti-LGBTQ+ rights groups. At San Diego Pride’s Spirit of Stonewall Rally, Senator Toni Atkins praised Ward for persevering through the onslaught to pass the bill.

Since 2020, eight states have enacted laws mandating school staff to forcibly out transgender students, while five others have passed legislation encouraging such actions. California is the first state to explicitly prohibit forced outing policies in schools.

Despite homes not always being safe for transgender youth, schools should be a sanctuary, according to Ward. A 2024 Trevor Project survey found than 40% of transgender and nonbinary youth find their homes to be LGBTQ-affirming. Conversely, more than half of transgender and nonbinary young people reported that their schools are gender-affirming, which correlates with lower suicide attempt rates.

County’s Child and Family Well-Being Department celebrates one year

The County’s Child and Family Well-Being Department (CFWB) is celebrating its first anniversary in what will be a multiyear transition focused on providing prevention and support services through one dynamic department. In its first year, the CFWB reduced the number of children in foster care by nearly 12%. For children who did need the protection of foster care, 44% were placed with relatives—marking a 10% increase over the previous year.

Good works

Father Joe’s to convert shelter to detox beds

Father Joe’s Villages ended a contract with the city to provide shelter beds at the Paul Mirabel Center to convert the East Village site into detox beds and sober living facility for individuals experiencing homelessness funded by private donors. Thanks to a change in city code championed by Councilmember Raul Campillo, the conversion could occur much more quickly than originally planned.

The new detox facility will contain 45 beds that turnover every 14 days, providing a 90-bed complement every month. This marks a 2250% increase on the current number of Medi-Cal eligible detox beds, two, in the City of San Diego. Looking at the region as a whole, there are only 78 of these types of beds in all of San Diego County, thus making the additional 45 beds at the Father Joe’s site a more than 57% increase on what exists currently.

Father Joe’s’ Village Health Center served thousands

Father Joe’s Villages provided comprehensive health care services – including medical, dental and behavioral care – to nearly 2,700 people experiencing homelessness in the first half of 2024.

The organization’s on-site Village Health Center provided 8,015 medical appointments, 1,343 dental appointments, and 589 psychiatry visits between Jan. and June. Mental health services at the Village Health Center were accessed 1,655 times in the same time period. Transformative Recovery Services, a low-barrier outpatient program for substance use disorder, was accessed 1,872 times. The organization’s Street Health team, which brings care directly to people on the streets, provided 1,156 instances of care.

In June alone, Father Joe’s Villages helped 1,024 unduplicated clients through 2,401 Village Health Center encounters.

Cleanup event in Downtown

To help remove trash and debris from San Diego neighborhoods, the City of San Diego is partnering with several organizations on a community-driven series of cleanups called “Second Saturdays.” The first event kicked off in Downtown San Diego on Saturday, July 13 at 8 a.m. with Mayor Todd Gloria and City Council member Stephen Whitburn joining volunteers.

The goal is to expand the cleanups throughout the city with small groups of volunteers collecting litter in their neighborhoods on the second Saturday of each month. The nonprofit Street Stewards will help coordinate the effort by identifying neighborhood captains to organize the monthly cleanups. Volunteers can register for the cleanup at cleansd.org.

SDF awards $4.9m in scholarships

San Diego Foundation (SDF) announced it awarded a record-breaking $4.9 million in 1,555 college scholarships to expand higher education access for 1,272 local students. Scholarship recipients, the majority of whom are the first in their families to attend college and come from low-middle-income families, were recognized during the SDF annual scholarships celebration on Sunday, July 21.

The Community Scholarship Program is made possible through the generous donor support of 154 unique charitable funds at San Diego Foundation and is the largest in the region outside of the university system. Since 1997, the program has awarded more than $53 million to more than 14,000 college students from San Diego.

Councilmember Whitburn hosts Back-to-School Drive

Through Aug. 25, San Diego City District 3 Councilmember Stephen Whitburn is hosting a Back to School Drive for public schools in his district. The drive aims to ensure that children and teachers in our community have the necessary supplies and resources to kickstart their academic year with confidence and enthusiasm regardless of financial status.

The list of items includes school and classroom supplies. Visit sandiego.gov/staging/back-school-drive to see the list. Supplies can be dropped off at libraries within Council District 3.

Planes, bikes, boats, buses…

Pershing Bikeway (finally) open

North Park and Downtown now have a protected bikeway connecting the two neighborhoods with Pershing Drive converted into a two-lane street with a separated two-lane bikeway and a sidewalk. A decade in development, ground broke on the project two-and-a-half years ago after the high profile deaths of cyclist Laura Shinn and scooter rider Johnny Sepulveda who were struck by cars in 2021.

With features like a diagonal crossing at B Street and 19th Street, bicyclists can continue through the intersection while all other traffic is stopped. Another unique feature of the project is a 75-foot bridge installed to allow pedestrian and bicyclists to cross over Florida Canyon creek. Additional features include a 65-foot diameter roundabout with a camphor tree at the intersection of Pershing Drive and Redwood Street which improves traffic flow. The project also added five new pedestrian intersections and 70 path lights that improve visibility for all.

Construction of the $14 million Pershing Bikeway project was funded by TransNet, the regional half-cent sales tax for transportation, administered by SANDAG.  

MTS electric bus fleet reaches one million milestone

The San Diego Metropolitan Transit System (MTS) announced a major milestone in reaching its goal to help San Diego reduce greenhouse gas emissions and advance cleaner air. On the road to having a carbon-neutral fleet by 2040, MTS’s battery-electric buses eclipsed the one-million-mile marker last month. This milestone, 1,021,990 miles, represents 2,130 metric tons of CO2e, or carbon dioxide equivalent, not being emitted into the region’s air. It is also the equivalent of 4.9 million passenger vehicle miles traveled. This means less cars on the road and cleaner air. 

MTS currently has 25 electric buses in service and more on the way to keep residents moving in a cleaner and greener way. MTS anticipates receiving 13 more electric buses in early 2025.

Port receives $5m grant for marine terminal redevelopment

The Port of San Diego has been awardphase ied a $5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) for planning, design, and environmental permitting for Phase II of the Tenth Avenue Marine Terminal (TAMT) Redevelopment Plan. The project includes on-terminal rail track replacement, realignment, and load capacity improvements. It will also advance the planning of seismic upgrades, concrete resurfacing, potentially additional stormwater improvements, water and utility reconfiguration and upgrades, as well as front gate, perimeter fence, and operations center reconfiguration. These improvements will maximize operational areas on the terminal, make cargo handling and movement more efficient, and support future charging technologies for electric vehicles and equipment. Phase I of the project, pictured above, was completed in 2020.

U-Haul data: SD’s new neighbors come from Western states

U-Haul Truck data shows for those arriving to San Diego, excluding intra-state moves from other places in California, the top origin state is Arizona followed by Texas. Nevada, Washington, Colorado, Florida, Oregon, Utah, Virginia and Illinois fill out the remaining top 10 of arrivals from out of state. As for the top metro areas inside California using U-Haul trucks to move to San Diego, Los Angeles led the field followed by the Bay Area, Palm Springs, Fresno and Bakersfield.

Alaska Airlines to launch nonstop service to Reno, Vail

Starting Dec. 19, Alaska is launching new nonstop, roundtrip service to Reno, and on Dec. 20, new nonstop, roundtrip service to Vail, via the nearby Eagle County Airport. Both are popular winter skiing destinations. Tickets are now available on alaskaair.com.

People to watch

Navy SEAL Museum makes board appointments, hires staff

The upcoming Navy SEAL Museum San Diego’s Board of Directors appointed Vice Admiral Tim Szymanski, USN (Ret.) to serve as its chairman for the next term. Szymanski served most recently as the Deputy Commander for United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM).

Meanwhile, Captain (SEAL) Brian “Beef” Drechsler, USN (Ret.) has been hired to oversee operations of the museum and serve as deputy executive director. Drechsler retired from active duty on June 1 of this year and was awarded the Navy’s 2017 Stockdale Leadership award. Drechsler previously commanded the Naval Special Warfare Center overseeing the production of all new SEALs and Special Warfare Combat Crewman.

The Museum has also hired longtime San Diego museum professional, Matthew Schiff, as assistant marketing director. Schiff has most recently served as the marketing director for the San Diego History Center in Balboa Park and previously with the San Diego Natural History Museum.

The Navy SEAL Museum San Diego is currently building out its exhibition space at 1001 Kettner Blvd., the former Downtown location of the Museum of Contemporary Arts. The museum plans to open in early 2025.

Kristina Hysler appointed director of watershed science and planning for RICK

RICK, a multidisciplinary planning, design and engineering firm serving the Western United States, has appointed Kristina Hysler, PE, as the director of watershed science and planning. A recognized authority in water resource engineering and water quality consulting with over 20 years of experience, Hysler has managed more than 1,000 water quality compliance projects for municipal clients, including the first approved Water Quality Improvement Plan in the San Diego region for the San Dieguito Watershed. Hysler has held a variety of senior-level positions over the course of her career, including at WSP USA, where she rose to senior vice president and managed a team of 30+ engineers and scientists.

 In the San Diego region, she has worked with municipalities to negotiate and implement regional National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits. In this regional framework, she led the multi-stakeholder party process to develop and implement three watershed-based water quality improvement plans (WQIPs) and served as principal reviewer on two additional WQIPs.

Mayor Todd Gloria names three to San Diego Historical Resources Board

San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria has appointed three persons to the city’s Historical Resources Board. Rammy Cortez, a resident of Little Italy, is a small-scale urban infill developer and builder of more than 60,000 square feet of transit-oriented missing middle housing in San Diego. He has served as a Young Leaders Group Board member, former co-chair and current advocacy co-chair of the Small-Scale Infill Development Product Council, a member of Circulate San Diego’s Policy Committee. He has a master’s degree in real estate from the University of San Diego’s Burnham-Moore’s Center for Real Estate and is a California licensed general contractor.

Northern Trust appoints San Diego market leader

Northern Trust has appointed Ali Nafii as market leader in San Diego, where he will direct the wealth management business serving high-net-worth individuals and families.

In his new role, Nafii will be responsible for driving strategic growth in San Diego. He will lead a team that provides best-in-class investment management, trust, banking and advisory solutions to many of San Diego’s most successful families, companies and nonprofits.