SAN DIEGO—I.D.E.A. District aims to bring a missing piece to the Downtown San Diego fabric: high-paying jobs that will dominate the 21st Century, partner David Malmuth tells GlobeSt.com exclusively. We spoke with Malmuth about the initiative, its goals and how it is transforming Downtown into a market that will be competitive with other livable cities in the country.
GlobeSt.com: What is the purpose of I.D.E.A. District?
Malmuth: It's an initiative that was started about 4.5 years ago by my partner Pete Garcia and me. We noticed that there was a missing piece to the Downtown San Diego fabric, which was the clean, high-paying jobs that will be dominating the 21st Century. There has been no net increase in the amount of office space occupied downtown in 15 years, at the same time we have developed 15,000 housing units; and cities that are going to win understand that developing their urban spaces with numerous amenities is their most powerful economic development strategy. Young, talented workers are going to drive the economy, and we needed a competitive offering to attract them.
We identified the pillars of a healthy, sustainable district as Innovation, Design, Education, and Arts, and now I.D.E.A. District is growing on more than 90 acres in Downtown—a largely undeveloped portion of the upper East Village bordered by 11th St. on the west, the freeway on the east, City College on the north, and Market St. on the south. It has the potential to become an ecosystem that could establish what the downtown was missing—a 21st-Century jobs cluster. We started it in an unorthodox fashion, with no tenants, no land, and no money, but our hunch was that if it was worthy, then other stakeholders would come aboard and pursue it with us. It was a different model, and it turned out to be a blessing.
GlobeSt.com: What do the timelines look like for this project?
Malmuth: We start construction on IDEA1 with our partner Lowe Enterprises in October. This is the next step to establishing the District's vision of becoming San Diego's design and technology innovation hub. It will mix all of the critical uses—office, residential, and retail—in a way that encourages interaction between inhabitants of this block and the larger community. The entertainment and event venue SILO in Makers Quarter, another new employment hub for Downtown and the surrounding region, is open, and Urban Discovery Academy, a K-8 charter school that develops the whole child, is building a new school at 14th and E, right across the street from IDEA1. It combines an historic building with a new, contemporary addition, and it will be completed by the September opening of the new semester. Also, Quartyard, an urban park/shipping-container village started by Rad Lab, four recent graduates of the NewSchool of Architecture and Design, has just opened. All those kids were part of a workshop we did with the NewSchool about four years ago; they developed Quartyard as their graduate thesis project, and then they made it happen. So, there are a lot of partners helping to move the vision forward.
GlobeSt.com: How did the idea for the project come about?
Malmuth: It's really an outgrowth of our work in development for the last 20-plus years, and our response to where the world is going. I.D.E.A. District will change, evolve and grow over the next 10 to 15 years. The principles we have articulated have been adopted by the community, developers and institutions in the area. We all have a strong sense that we're creating something very special for San Diego. There's an innovation start-up mentality that has begun Downtown. That sensibility will nourish talent and start businesses. It's about allowing ideas to overlap and merge—Downtown should be the place that attracts that kinds of energy.
GlobeSt.com: What should the commercial real estate industry in San Diego know about I.D.E.A. District?
Malmuth: The talent that design/technology companies are looking for is already living Downtown, but 75% are getting into their cars every day and going out of Downtown to work. The industry should develop locations for these businesses Downtown, with the right kind of creative-office product, so that the workforce can walk, ride or bike to work. This becomes a big recruiting advantage for smart employers. The same companies that used to be in the Silicon Valley are now in SoMa in San Francisco because of that dynamic. People in downtown San Diego want to walk to work and be able to choose from 10 restaurants they can go to for lunch. We are ready for San Diego to seize this opportunity.
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Carrie Rossenfeld
Carrie Rossenfeld is a reporter for the San Diego and Orange County markets on GlobeSt.com and a contributor to Real Estate Forum. She was a trade-magazine and newsletter editor in New York City before moving to Southern California to become a freelance writer and editor for magazines, books and websites. Rossenfeld has written extensively on topics including commercial real estate, running a medical practice, intellectual-property licensing and giftware. She has edited books about profiting from real estate and has ghostwritten a book about starting a home-based business.
