South Bay Gets New Mall; Open Houses to See This Weekend

Word on the Street

Wave of revitalization continues in IB with new mall

A new shopping mall broke ground yesterday in Imperial Beach, with plans to bring a much-needed grocery store and other retailers to this corner of South Bay.

Breakwater Town Center will take up 45,000 square feet on Palm Avenue between Ninth and Seventh streets. The first phase of the project, which includes the new Grocery Outlet, is scheduled to open next year. Other retailers considering setting up shop at the new mall are Chipotle, Five Guys, Starbucks, and Jersey Mike’s, according to a release from the developer, Sudberry Properties.

The shopping center is one of the large-scale projects happening around Imperial Beach, along with the two-acre Bikeway Village, a townhome complex on Seacoast Drive by the pier, and the Navy’s $1 billion SEAL training campus nearby on Silver Strand.

These new and recent developments, such as the Pier South Resort and Coronado Brewing Company’s tasting room, have reshaped the sleepy surf town. Imperial Beach was long considered one of the last affordable coastal neighborhoods in San Diego, but home prices there rose recently, and drastically—by almost 20 percent last year—and it’s expected to continue rising. Long-time residents, especially renters, are starting to worry that they’ll be priced out of the community.

Hit The Streets

Sound off on new public projects

If you live or work in the Mid-City area or East Village, changes are coming to your streets with more bike lanes and walkways. Local government agencies are hosting some upcoming events to share details about these new projects and explain how they may affect the roads, traffic, and possibly parking. If you have questions or opinions about these developments, you can make yourself heard at these public meetings:

• The Georgia-Meade Bikeway is one of six new bikeways planned for the North Park area, and aims to connect North Park, Normal Heights and Talmadge with bike lanes and raised crosswalks. Representatives from the San Diego Association of Governments will be at an open house on Tuesday, May 10, at the Lafayette Hotel to discuss the project.

• Over in East Village, Civic San Diego plans to make over several blocks on 14th Street with a pedestrian greenway, the beginning of the city’s long-term plan to make downtown more bike-friendly and walkable. They’re hosting a workshop at the Civic San Diego office next Thursday, May 12, to review the greenway’s design concept, art displays and landscaping.

House Hunting

Numbers game: $525,000 for 742 square feet. | Photo by Berkshire Hathaway HomeService/Screenshot from Redfin

While checking what’s for sale this week, we found a North Park abode which might be the smallest home we’ve seen since starting the Hot Blocks blog. It’s 742 square feet and priced at $525,000. Does having Adams Avenue within walking distance make up for it? It’s open this weekend if you want to take a look.

For a little more money than the North Park house is a place in Rancho Peñasquitos with a pool. | Photo by Keller Williams Realty/Screenshot from Redfin

Most homes in the 92104 zip code are in the $650K-and-up club, but many are less than 1,000 square feet. Spend about that much in Rancho Peñasquitos and you could have five bedrooms, double the space, and a pool in the backyard.

Gawk at this $2.67 million home in Rancho Santa Fe. | Photo by Berkshire Hathaway HomeService/Screenshot from Redfin

This week’s daydream listing is inside a gated community in Rancho Santa Fe and is open for viewing on Sunday. It has four garages, a game room, and infinity pool, and is going for a cool $2.67 million.

News Bite

Horton Plaza Park is here

Horton Plaza Park is now open, and 200 events are already scheduled to take place in the public square. | Photo by Marie Tutko

You may have seen that Horton Plaza Park is finally open, and the occasion was marked with a grand opening ceremony and party on Wednesday that was attended by local politicos and Westfield executives. The cool elements of the new downtown park, such as the restored, century-old Irving Gill fountain, murals by Kelsey Montague, and luminary statues that can synchronize light displays with the fountains, were the talk of the town this week. But NBC San Diego has a story on what’s not being discussed about the park—that it took almost four years to build and how the project’s cost doubled.