Trammell Crow, Dealy Reflect on Downtown Renaissance

Perhaps the biggest vote of confidence on the future of Downtown San Diego isn't Perry Dealy's $1.3B Manchester Pacific Gateway mixed-use project. He's pursuing a 380-key hotel development at the same time, and Perry is expected to detail his plans at Bisnow's 2nd Annual San Diego Evolution of Downtown event starting at 8am on Sept. 29 at the Moniker Group Warehouse at 705 16th St.

As Perry sees it, Downtown San Diego has plenty of room to go before we could see overdevelopment. “Our downtown is positioned to go into a boom, and we're in the front end of that now,” he tells us, adding that Millennials continue to flock to the city limits to live. He says no one has a crystal ball to determine how deep that demand is, but on the front end there is a strong enough demand to justify the projects that are in the pipeline now.

Perry tells us his firm is under contract with a parking lot at A and Columbia streets for a 380-key hotel called Columbia Hotel. Perry says he's secured a flag, but declined to identify it. His Manchester project alone will include 1,400 keys in two hotels, along with nearly 1M SF of office and a ton of retail. 

Trammell Crow Residential also is banking on the San Diego surge with three projects underway, including Alexan Melrose in Vista, the 18-story Alexan with 313 units in East Village and a smaller project in Little Italy. Trammell Crow's Garth Erdossy will be a panelist at our event and tells us he believes the more projects, the more people will move to Downtown. “What we saw was the more stuff that happened...it created more demand," he says.

Garth (left with development associate Jason Ballow) says in the short-term there may be some issues with multifamily absorption as supply could outstrip demand. But over the median term, Downtown is “sort of a slam dunk.” If there's a missing piece to Downtown's resurgence, it's the presence of a major tech or life science employer. Garth says that may be only a matter of time. “I believe in the next five years, 10 years, one of the big technology companies will locate down there and that will begin to change the makeup,” he says.

Join Garth, Perry and other industry luminaries, including the City of San Diego director of real estate assets Cybele Thompson (a Bisnow Power Woman), and the rest of our all-stars at the 2nd Annual San Diego Evolution of Downtown event starting at 8am on Sept. 29 at the Moniker Group Warehouse at 705 16th St. Sign up here.