The Campus at Horton, or Horton as some like to call it, has been an iconic property since opening day in 1985. It heralded the coming of a downtown San Diego renaissance that brought a renewed and revitalized Gaslamp Quarter, a modern convention center, luxury hotels, residential towers, and Petco Park. As redevelopment charged forward through the 80’s and 90’s, Horton Plaza had begun to show its age, and by the start of the new millennium it had truly lost its retail prominence to Fashion Valley and UTC.
In 2018, Stockdale Capital Partners saw potential in converting the 10-acre urban mall into a new economic catalyst, a job creator, and public attraction. With their purchase of the property in August of that year, Stockdale immediately positioned the Campus at Horton as San Diego’s downtown innovation hub for science, technology, arts, entertainment, and education. Horton is dedicated to adaptive reuse, through minimizing unused space, and utilizing as much of the existing framework and materials as possible. The commitment to reuse and recycle building materials has reduced the embodied carbon footprint by 60%. This commitment has put Horton well on its way to achieving LEED Platinum and WELL Platinum certifications in 2023.
Practically speaking, Horton is utilizing the latest in mixed re-use and green building practices, and by doing this, Horton can deliver all the benefits of a new modern building without the environmental impact and costs associated with ground-up construction. The perfect example of how they are accomplishing this is through their reimaging of the former Nordstrom structure into the future home to San Diego’s leading tech and lab science companies. Taking advantage of its department store dimensions (18+ foot ceiling heights,) robust construction (heavy-duty steel and concrete,) and Nordstrom’s complete seismic update in 2004, Stockdale was able to add an additional 5 stories or 200,000 square feet of best-in-class office space, while also creating 200,000 square feet of industry-leading life science laboratory space.
You may not know this, but San Diego is a rising center for tech and life science talent. San Diego’s major universities graduate nearly 5,000 engineering and computer science students every year, and in the past those graduates had to seek rewarding employment in places like Boston or San Francisco. This annual output of intellectual capital motivated Stockdale to build a state-of -the-art campus that will attract the firms that want to tap into this incredible well of talent. Though Horton’s unequaled access to the San Diego trolley system will allow these new innovators the ability to stay in their beloved San Diego communities and commute via public transportation, with 2,200 on-site parking spaces, Horton will still offer the largest and most convenient parking, valet services, and EV charging stations in Downtown San Diego.
Horton is the ultimate urban innovation campus with a diverse and dynamic mix of food, shopping, entertainment, health, and wellness options, as well as unique arts and cultural venues and programming. When complete, Horton will feature configurable floor plates to match companies’ current and future demands; featuring more than 1 million square feet of office, retail, restaurant, and entertainment spread across 9 buildings. Learn more about creative office, life science labs, and retail leasing opportunities at www.hortonsandiego.com.
About Stockdale Capital Partners
Founded in 2010, Stockdale Capital Partners is a real estate investment firm with 214 years of combined experience. The company is an owner-operator specializing in the redevelopment and repositioning of real estate assets in leading Southwest markets, with expertise in revitalizing urban properties of all types. Stockdale Capital Partners’ history of transforming failed shopping centers into desirable high-tech, mixed-use office hubs includes projects in Scottsdale and Los Angeles. For more information, visit www.stockdalecapital.com.
