In The News

Trammell Crow acquired the property in August 2011 for an undisclosed price and has declined to say how much Alexan Gallerie will cost to build.

“This is a perfect example of what I think we’re going to see a lot more of, which is the redevelopment and change of use of older, obsolete properties,” said Richard Gonor, executive vice president of the commercial brokerage JLL in San Diego. “The densification and redevelopment of the area is going to continue to improve the overall appeal of the submarket.”

Gonor and Brandt Riedman, a vice president of JLL in San Diego, are handling leasing of the office portion of Alexan.

“We’re continuing to see Mission Valley evolve and there’s going to be tremendous change that’s going to take place over the next five to 10 years. You’ve got San Diego State West and Civita entering into its final residential phase and entering its commercial phase. You’ve got Riverwalk,” Gonor said. “You’ve’ got millions and millions of dollars pouring into Mission Valley.”

Civita is a nearby residential development by Sudberry Properties with plans to add commercial elements and San Diego State University is redeveloping the former Jack Murphy Stadium site with a new stadium, a satellite college campus and residential and commercial projects.

The Alexan site had been a rambling low-rise office complex that was demolished by Trammell Crow.

“There’s a lot of these smaller, infill-type projects, such as older office buildings that are being torn down,” Gonor said.

Alexan will range from five to six stories. Construction is slated for completion in October 2021.

Designed by DesignARC based in Santa Barbara and Los Angeles, the look of the project was described by Trammell Crow as “a contemporary and deconstructed take on Art Deco and the industrial arts with bold streamlines and reflective dynamic angles.”

Community amenities include a pool and spa, fire pits, outdoor televisions, barbecues, a courtyard lounge, a fitness center with Technogym equipment, a Wellbeats Studio that provides on demand fitness classes, coworking space, private conference rooms, a dog washing and grooming station, a bicycle repair shop and storage area, a mail center with parcel lockers, and a resident event room with a nine-screen video wall, gourmet kitchen and a gaming area.

Commercial tenants will be able to share many of the amenities with residential tenants, Gonor said.

Apartments in Alexan will run from 556 square feet to 1,788 square feet with ceilings of nine feet or more in height. The apartments will come with stainless steel appliances, flat panel kitchen and bathroom cabinets, quartz countertops and full-size stackable washers and dryers.

The project is at the intersection of State Route 163 and Interstate 8 and Schiffer said it was designed to have as many apartments as possible facing the mall and away from freeways.

At the same time, floor-to-ceiling glass in the ground-floor retail section of the project gives high visibility to tenants, Schiffer said.

“Having that 20-foot floor-to ceiling with glass on both sides with the ability to market toward the freeway is really interesting for the user,” Schiffer said.

Gonor said the commercial space has retractable glass doors that open out into a 4,000 square-foot courtyard.

“You can open it up and you’ve got your own courtyard right there, a great space if you want to have an event or open it up to get some fresh air,” Gonor said.

Designed by JWDA Architecture, the renovated Paladion also stands out as a low-rise structure amid a sea of office towers, Weir said.

“With the Paladion, we wanted to create an environment that offers the comforts of a suburban campus with the amenities of downtown officing,” Weir said.

As a four-story building, the Paladion is a walkable structure for tenants that might want to lease space on more than one floor.

Coincidentally, it also fits with some of the social distancing protocols of the COVID era by giving tenants the option of taking the stairs instead of using an elevator, Weir said.

“While the San Diego office leasing market has been slowed by the COVID-19 pandemic, we are beginning to see companies moving forward with future relocation and expansion decisions,” Russell said.

Weir said he expects pent up demand for office space to surface in the next six months.

“Companies are starting to make decisions about their space requirements again,” Weir said.

In addition to capitalizing on the rapid growth of life science companies in San Diego, Bosa Development also is appealing to the traditional downtown tenant base of law firms and financial firms, Weir said.

“The type of product it is, it would appeal to just about any type of tenant that’s out there, whether it be financial services, tech companies, software companies, visual media or life science,” Gonor said.

Bosa bought the failed shopping mall in 2013 for $27 million, according to CoStar, a real estate research firm.

The company has several notable downtown residential developments and initially planned to add The Paladion to its residential portfolio.

Weir said Bosa Development quickly decided that the site was more suitable for redevelopment as an office product.

“We had a large land base in San Diego already. We decided that the improvements there were so unique that it deserved to be repositioned as a next-generation office building,” Weir said.

Gonor said the building had been renovated as office space for American Special Health before Bosa Development, but the earlier renovation was far less extensive.

“It was very functional but needed to be redone and updated and modernized,” Weir said.

After buying the building, Bosa gutted it and added a new façade.

“Everything about the building is new,” Gonor said. “They kept the concrete structure slabs and the frame but everything else in the building is new – all the systems, all the improvements, the glass, the roof, mechanical systems, restrooms. That really should be considered new construction.