A $900 million residential and commercial development is being planned in Chula Vista on a 10-acre site between 707 F. St. and 750 E. St.
With MountainWest Real Estate of Chula Vista as the primary developer, the Bayview Point project is designed to include a 22-story apartment tower with 288 apartments, a 19-story residential tower with 216 apartments, and a 400-room hotel with 37 for-sale condominium units on the top floor of the 24-story building.
Chelsea Investment Corp., based in Carlsbad, would build an eight-story residential tower on the site as part of the project with 273 apartments designated as affordable for low-income families and seniors.
CEO
MountainWest Real Estate
“Chula Vista presented MountainWest with an opportunity to create a dynamic vision for the 10-acre site as a sought-after place to live, work and enjoy the connectivity of Chula Vista’s urban core with the UC (University of California) San Diego Blue Line Trolley and San Diego’s Big Bay,” said Jim Pieri, CEO of MountainWest.
Together with the nearby $1.273 billion Gaylord Pacific Resort, the Bayview Point project is expected to transform the Chula Vista skyline. “For the first time in my life, people in downtown San Diego are going to be able to look south and see the Chula Vista skyline,” Kevin O’Neil, Mountain West project manager.
Negotiations
In addition to the residential towers, Bayview Point would include an 8,388-square-foot fitness center, a separate 5,100-square-foot spa, a four-story retail and office building of 33,100 square feet, and a four-story, 75,008-square-foot medical center.
Project Manager
Mountain West
“The idea is that the residents of the apartment buildings will have access to the spa and the condos that are on the upper level of the hotel will have concierge service – anything they want for their units from the hotel,” O’Neil said.
Space also has been carved out in the design for restaurants and other amenities.
The overall design of the project includes public plazas and parks linking the residential and commercial portions.
Construction could start as soon as 2024 if all goes well – and finish in 2027 or 2028, with the affordable housing tower by Chelsea Investment to be the first part of the project to be built, said O’Neil.
About six acres of the site is owned by MTS (Metropolitan Transit System) and would be leased by MountainWest. The rest is a former public works yard owned by the City of Chula Vista which MountainWest plans to buy.
“We have to negotiate the lease rate with MTS and the ultimate sale with the City of Chula Vista,” O’Neil said.
“It’s a beautiful location. There’s nothing south of Santa Barbara where you have an ocean and a bay view as well as transportation,” O’Neill said, adding that the project is designed to be a transportation hub for South County with bus and trolley service.
As part of that, a transit station with stops for three bus routes would be expanded to add a fourth bus stop and a trolley station on the site would be retained.
MTS and Chula Vista in December gave the go-ahead to MountainWest Real Estate to begin negotiations for a development agreement on the project, with a two-year timetable to reach agreements, O’Neil said.
Creating Jobs
“Chula Vista’s partnership with MTS and the MountainWest team’s vision will create a destination location that will bring substantial renewal activity for the city,” said Chula Vista Mayor John McCann.
Among those working with MountainWest and Chelsea Investment on Bayview Point are Tucker Sadler Architects, The Concord Group, Kimley-Horn, Wimmer Yamada & Caughey and Andrea Trapp as the creative director.
MountainWest estimates that the project will provide 4,000 temporary jobs during construction and 286 permanent jobs once the project is completed.
The affordable housing tower would be on top of an existing park-and-ride lot that would be incorporated into the tower as the lower level of a two-level parking garage that forms the bottom of the tower, O’Neil said.
O’Neil said the project also would include 506 parking spaces in the two market-rate apartment towers and 273 spaces in the affordable residential tower,70 spaces for the office building, and 132 for the medical center. “It would have been patently unfair to the neighborhood to under-park it,” O’Neil said. “For all the wishful thinking about bicycles and buses, people still want their cars.”
MountainWest’s other Chula Vista projects include Urbana, a six-story, $45 million project in downtown Chula Vista with 135 apartments and the six-story Casa Estillo with 142 apartments, also located in downtown Chula Vista.
Mountain West Real Estate
Founded: 1981
CEO: Jim Pieri
Headquarters: Chula Vista
Business: Real estate development and property management
Employees: 13
Website: www.mountainwest.com
Contact: 619-422-8400
Notable: MountainWest is a 30+ year old private firm that develops and manages mixed-use retail, commercial and residential projects.
