$40M Project Designed with Green in Mind

A $40 million North Park apartment building planned by Urban Housing Partners comes with a feature that will make it hard to miss – a three-story box-like portal in the middle that leads to a third-floor landscaped courtyard.

Designed by Stephen Dalton Architects of Solana Beach, Greenhouse takes its name, in part, from the green color accents of the building exterior but also from the greenery throughout the building, including a wall of living plants inside the portal.

“It really distinguishes the building from what you might otherwise see,” said Stephen Dalton, principal architect at Stephen Dalton Architects.

“If you’re walking into the portal, you walk straight through into the courtyard. It’s more like a covered part of the courtyard than a separate part,” Dalton said.

Working with Dalton in designing Greenhouse were Dan Di Giusto, project engineer, and Ryan Brem, a senior associate with Dalton’s firm.

Clad in wood, the elevated portal is open to the south, “so it’s got really great solar exposure,” Dalton said.

Because the portal is elevated, it will also give residents a bird’s-eye view of the neighborhood.

“It gives our residents a chance to look out into the community,” Dalton said. “There’s a big focus on the outdoors for this building, so all the units have balconies that go for the full width of the unit. The balconies become a repeating pattern across the façade.”

The eight-story project will have 88 apartments in a five-story, wood frame building over a concrete podium, said Sean Jones, a partner in Urban Housing Partners.

Walkways leading to the apartments will be along the exterior of the building “so residents don’t have to travel through a double-loaded corridor,” Dalton said. “They get to experience Southern California sunshine as they circulate around the building to their units,” adding that the exterior walkways “create more of a community that people access to each of the front doors.”

The façade of the building is white with green accents.

The lobby also will have “relatively large indoor plants,” Jones said. “We’re just trying to incorporate as much greenery in the building as possible.”

Some apartments will have especially high ceilings of about 11 feet compared to a typical height of about 9 feet, Jones said.

“I don’t want to call them a penthouse style, but they will be larger,” Jones said. “A little bit of extra height goes a long way.”

Pending permitting, Jones said that construction should start in September or October and take about 22 months to complete.

The 14,000-square-foot site had for years been the home of the North Park Diner, a neighborhood staple, Jones said, adding that the diner closed in November 2022.

Short-term Rentals Included

What makes the building unusual, aside from its design, is that 35 of the apartments will be available as furnished, short-term rentals for two days up to six months at a time.

Jones said the short-term rentals would appeal to persons visiting on vacation and those who have temporary work assignments in San Diego, such as traveling nurses.

“On the hospitality side, you really don’t have a hotel in the North Park market other than the LaFayette,” Jones said, referring to the LaFayette Hotel, Swim Club & Bungalows that recently underwent a $31 million renovation.

The apartments range from 375 square feet to about 1,050 square feet.

The building will have 53 parking spaces arranged in a three-level, mechanical parking platform by Klaus Multiparking, based in Toronto. Up to 10 of the platforms will have electric vehicle charging stations, Jones said.

“Even though we’re not required to provide any parking, our opinion is that most people still have cars, still want to use cars, and still want to park them where they live,” Jones said.

Urban Housing Partners

Founded: 2002
Headquarters: Downtown San Diego
Partners: Mike Dunham, Jacob Schwartz, Casey Engelman, Bryan Underwood, Sean Jones
Business: Multifamily Development
Employees: 5 Partners
Website:  https://www.uhp-re.com/
Contact number: 858-212-6512
Notable: Founded by Sherm Harmer, Urban Housing Partners has been involved in over $1 billion of housing development in the San Diego region over the past 20 years.