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Monday, Mar 18, 2024
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Civita Development Brings Hope to Housing Market

In a sign of a potential awakening in San Diego’s near dormant housing construction market, developers have broken ground on Civita, a long discussed, 230-acre mixed-use development that will eventually include more than 4,000 homes in the city’s Mission Valley area.

Formerly known as Quarry Falls, Civita will be developed by locally based Sudberry Properties in four phases during the next 12 to 15 years. The pedestrian friendly development, with access to a city trolley stop, will eventually include apartments and condominiums, offices, neighborhood retail offerings and community gathering spots.

Marco Sessa, a senior vice president of Sudberry who handles residential projects, said the November start of grading at the property, near Friars Road, followed eight years of planning and design to ensure that the development would meet sustainability goals.

Developers met frequently over the years with city planning groups and took steps to minimize the potential effects on the surrounding community, including vehicle traffic, which has been an ongoing concern in Mission Valley.

Overall planned housing density has been revised slightly downward from original plans, but otherwise the project did not have to be altered drastically before receiving its final entitlements in 2008, Sessa said.

Optimistic Outlook

Developers felt that now was an appropriate time to move forward, as the real estate climate, including demand for homes, shows signs of gradual improvement compared with the past two years.

“We’re beginning to see signs of a brightening environment, though it’s still not overly bright,” Sessa said of the housing scene. “But we have been seeing some green shoots in the overall economy.”

Sessa said the first phase, which will take four to five years to complete, will initially include 200 condo units and 306 apartments. Build-outs during the next two years will include senior housing, affordable housing components, and some commercial elements.

The overall goal of the project was incorporating “live, work, play” components, Sessa said.

Civita, whose name is taken from the roots of Latin words for “civic” and “community” and “vitality” and “life,” is on the site of a former quarry, on land owned for the past several years by the Grant family, first acquired in the 1920s by Franklin Grant.

The family in 2002 enlisted Sudberry, which has done several mixed-use developments throughout San Diego County, to develop a green, sustainable community.

Reducing Urban Sprawl

Company Chairman Tom Sudberry said the infill development is intended to help reduce urban sprawl while enhancing open park space, adding that it will incorporate traffic improvements that will benefit the larger Mission Valley area.

The firm said it has provided nearly $50 million in funding for planned improvements to nearby freeway interchanges, local intersections, pedestrian and bicycle paths, and other key transportation arteries.

Civita is among three San Diego County developments recently honored as a 2010 Catalyst Project of the Year by the state of California. The honor recognizes developments that promote environmental sustainability.

Gordon Carrier, a principal in the design firm Carrier Johnson + Culture, which developed initial master plans during the entitlement process, said Civita was developed around a central open space, with the priority of allowing residents to walk in any direction along greenbelts, trails and tree-lined streets.

“Rather than leveling the site, the idea was to restore the land to its natural topography and connect the mesas to the valleys — go from low to high,” Carrier said.

Borre Winckel, president and chief executive officer of the Building Industry Association of San Diego County, said the groundbreaking at Civita also is a welcome event for a beleaguered construction industry, which has seen employment plummet in the past two years amid recession.

Stimulus for Jobs

The start of such a large project and the commitment to it by Sudberry send an even stronger signal than other recent news from around the county regarding the purchase of land for future home development by some large builders.

“It’s good news for construction companies, but it’s also good news for things like construction bonding companies and title companies, and it means that people at surveying companies are getting some work now,” Winckel said.

When fully built, Civita will include approximately 4,700 homes, including single-family houses, condominiums, townhomes and apartments. Ten percent of homes will be priced as “attainable” based on San Diego’s guidelines for affordable housing, according to Sudberry Properties.

Sudberry recently completed the sale of 9.5 acres to Shea Homes for the development of 200 townhomes, called Origen, with two- and three-bedroom units, during the first phase of Civita. Shea anticipates breaking ground on the models in August 2011.

The first apartment complex in Civita — named Circa 37, after the year the quarry was first mined — will have 306 apartments, with pre-leasing set for later this year.

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