Vacate, Demolish, Redesign: Part One
Vacate, Demolish, Redesign: Part One
Documenting the destruction and reconstruction of the Costa Verde Center in UTC.
When you cross the trolley tracks from the Westfield UTC side of Genessee Avenue, the sun-baked Costa Verde Center stretches out in front of you.
To the north, toward La Jolla Village Drive, a luxury highrise breaks the skyline with its glass silhouette. To the west, more towering apartments loom over the shopping center. And to the south, toward Nobel Drive, the lower levels of the Costa Verde Center dip around the corner, out of sight beyond the plaza’s aging upper levels.
After years of planning and negotiating, Regency Centers, the original owners of the Costa Verde Center, finally received the green light in 2020 to redevelop the shopping center. Costa Verde served the community for over 30 years.
Now, the center is preparing for an overhaul.
As the San Diego Business Journal reported in 2020, the project promises to rip out and replace almost all of the existing buildings on the property. The new design could upgrade the area with about 400,000 additional square feet of office and lab space, reportedly designed to attract life science and biotech companies focused on research and development.
In January 2022, however, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported that Alexandria Real Estate bought the entire property from Regency Centers. Alexandria started out as a partner in the redevelopment of the center, but stated in a filing with the Securities and Exchanges commission that it intends to link the center with its nearby campuses to form a “mega campus.”
Alexandria, according to their January press release, already has a mega campus redevelopment in the works, in the San Francisco area.
According to the Union-Tribune article, Alexandria currently plans to preserve the design created when Regency Centers owned the full property, but said it’s also reviewing its options.
The Union-Tribune article cited that the developer expects construction to take two to three years.
Several of the center’s existing businesses were expected to migrate into the new retail space under the original plan, such as grocer Bristol Farms, The Boxing Club and possibly the restaurant Draft Republic. It will remain to be seen if Alexandria decides to preserve these plans.
In the meantime, only the Chevron and the McDonald’s at the center’s south end will remain untouched during the overhaul.
This series, Vacate, Demolish, Redesign, will document the transformation of the Costa Verde Center. In the next letter, I’ll cruise through the remnants of the shopping center, peering into the abandoned shells and dusty corners of the strip-mall’s office space.
As the center continues to vacate ahead of demolition, I will begin to speak to the community about the changes, what patrons and business owners look forward to, and what concerns people about the new path ahead.
For any tips or stories related to the shopping center, drop by the comments or email me at cnwilliams@substack.com.
All photos by C.N. Williams