Property Tours
Most of the images below will display a larger size if clicked, as well as provide additional information.
Blend-SD is a residential mid-rise building in San Diego offering studio and Junior 1-Bedroom apartments.
The Knauss Center will be the new home to the College of Business at the University of San Diego.
Badiee Development is building a concrete tilt-up industrial site for logistics use.
The Alpine Branch Library is believed to be California's second ever net-zero energy building.
This mixed-use, mostly residential employs a blend of creativity and community respect.
An iconic mixed-use project on ten acres in downtown San Diego.
Blend-SD
Oct 2021 - Blend-SD is a residential mid-rise apartment in the Linda Vista neighborhood of San Diego. It offers studio and Junior 1-bedroom apartment units. Studios start at $1900/month, which for most parts of the country may feel rather expensive. In Southern California however there is a housing shortage and $1900/month is on the lower end of the spectrum. While the complex offers air conditioning, which is not a given in San Diego at this price range, parking is not standard for all units.
There is a program called Complete Communities aimed at providing more affordable housing and reducing the impact that development projects have on the environment. One way of doing this is to encourage people to use public transportation. Typically, developers are required to provide a certain number of parking spaces when they erect a building. But with this new program, the developer was able to save money by providing a limited number of parking spaces. Those savings can then be passed on to future tenants in the form of lower rents.
Knauss Center for Business
Oct 2021 - The Knauss Center for Business at the University of San Diego is set to open in the Summer of 2022. Currently the various departments in the School of Business are located in various locations across campus. This building will allow the departments to finally be under one roof.
The 120,000 square foot building is located directly across from the main library and will offer views of Mission Bay from its outdoor decks. The building will have a conference center, a data analytics and finance lab, and an outdoor courtyard that connects to the neighboring Olin Hall. Our tour was led by Dean Tim Keane who asked that his office suite be converted into a business suite upstairs where everyone could benefit from the space and enjoy the view. His office was then placed adjacent to the main entrance allowing him to be more accessible and less removed from everyday activity.
Badiee Industrial Development
Nov 2022 - Badiee Development builds Class A buildings for industrial and logistics use. This site is located just north of the US-Mexican border. In fact, the border wall is visible from the site. Given its proximity to Mexico, end users of industrial sites like this one can rely on transportation and employees from south of the border. Being minutes away from Tijuana International Airport and freeways leading to San Diego and Los Angeles make it a strong location for industrial use.
Feb 2023 - A year later, I had the opportunity to revisit this site and see the progress that's been made. Lead developer Ben Badiee has been able to increase the value of this property significantly and has a number of other sites also being developed in the same area of South San Diego.
Alpine Branch Library
March 2022- The Alpine Branch of the San Diego County Library System is believed to be only California's second ever net-zero certified building. Built in 2016, the building uses photovoltaic solar panels to create energy and a series of features to conserve the energy it uses. As a result, they generate on average 8% more energy than they use.
From shading and the placement of windows to reduce heat transfer into the library, to using lighting that dims when there's more natural light, to carbon dioxide sensors that can determine the occupancy level of the building and adjust the thermostat accordingly, the building was granted net-zero certification 2018 and is also certified LEED Gold. But to the average patron, the library just looks nice and feels inviting. The designers made a point to assure that the energy efficiency features did not detract from either the functionality or appearance of the library. You can read more about the features by clicking here and following the link to Article #22.
Parco
March 2022 - Parco is a project is made up mostly of residential microunits, though it also contains coworking office space and small business friendly retail shops. The intention was to offer affordable housing to a community and region in desperate need, which was evidenced by the fact that they leased all units in only two months.
The developer also made a concerted effort to have the property blend into the neighborhood and found creative ways to build aesthetics into the project, such as by wrapping the parking garage with retail, office, and rowhomes. You can read more about this project and how they were able to creatively make it feasible in a future article.
Horton Plaza
March 2023 - Horton Plaza is an iconic location in downtown San Diego, covering ten acres of land originally built in 1985. It has over one million square feet of primarily office (70%) and retail (30%) space, with a focus on life science jobs. Spread across a total of nine buildings, this massive redevelopment project is planned to be certified LEED Platinum.
Asset manager, Leo Divinsky showed us around and explained when originally constructed the developers wanted people to "get lost" in order that they would spend more time on site and hopefully spend more money as a result, discovering stores they hadn't originally planned to patronize. Today, consumers want to be able to get in and out more quickly, and so there is a focus on improving circulation and providing accessibility across different modes of transportation.