Tower 180 in San Diego Trades as Redevelopment Play

Newmark arranged the sale of Tower 180, a fully vacant office building in Downtown San Diego, in a lender-facilitated, off-market transaction. The property, which sold for an undisclosed amount, is set to be converted for hospitality and residential use.

Executive managing directors Brunson Howard and Rick Reeder at Newmark represented the undisclosed seller, along with co-head of U.S. capital markets Kevin Shannon, executive managing director Tony Malk, senior managing director Chris Benton and managing director Anthony Muhlstein. The buyer was J Street Space, represented by a Cushman & Wakefield team led by Marc D. Renard.

“The sale of Tower 180 is a landmark transaction, as it represents one of the largest and most high-profile adaptive re-use acquisitions in this new market cycle,” said Howard. The Times of San Diego reported that locally based J Street plans a mid-2026 completion of the $140-million redevelopment.

Dating from 1963, with an eight-story annex added in 1973, the 25-story, 390,609-square-foot Tower 180 was originally delivered as the United States National Bank Building. It has changed ownership several times over the years, with the most recent previous sale occurring in 2016.