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Behind the Deal: The Campus at Horton, San Diego
San Diego has a deep and growing base of technology talent. Local colleges turn out more than 4,200 computer science and engineering graduates a year, including from UC San Diego’s nationally-ranked CS program. It’s about 23% more affordable for workers to live in San Diego than it is in San Francisco, and it has the highest concentration of 21-34 year old workers in the country.
What’s not to like if you are a tech company with an eye on growth?
The one box left unchecked has been the lack of Class A creative office space downtown, where tech companies and their workers most like to be.
Downtown has just shy of seven million square feet of Class A space, and vacancy is under 8% and falling. There is no significant new construction underway, but tech and other companies are locked in a battle for talent like the market’s enviable demographics. The challenge is how to build quality space quickly to meet the often aggressive timetables of growth businesses.
This makes redevelopment opportunities such as The Campus at Horton so attractive, according to Steven Yari, founder and CEO of Stockdale Capital Partners. Built in the 1980s and known as Horton Plaza when his firm acquired it in August, the 10-acre site in downtown San Diego was a largely vacant urban mall.
“The vision is to redevelop Horton as a high density, urban creative campus incorporating large floor plate office space with high ceilings and great views, strong retail amenities and public space,” Yari says.
The goal? Attract large tech and creative users as well as activate the surrounding neighborhood, much as Stockdale has succeeded in doing in another mall-turned-corporate campus project: The Galleria Corporate Center in Scottsdale, AZ.
According to Managing Director Dan Michaels, the first phase could begin as early as next summer, and because it’s a redevelopment not a full ground-up construction project, the first tenants could be in place by 3Q 2020.
“The Campus at Horton will feature over half million square feet of office and 250,000 square feet of retail in the first phase of development, along with parking and a public boardwalk. There’s also the potential to add 1.5 million square feet of space in later phases,” Michaels adds.
For comments, questions or concerns, please contact Dennis Kaiser
- ◦Development
