The Titan
San Diego
Jonathan Segal Architect

Jonathan Segal Architect uses an artful mix of materials, solids, and voids to animate this multifamily housing project

© Jimmy Fluker

For more photos click on 'photos & drawings' above. To see the people and products behind this project click on 'people & products.'

By Ann Jarmusch

For more than a dozen years, Jonathan Segal has bought parcels in downtown San Diego’s redevelopment areas that others dismissed as either poorly located or oddly shaped. An architect, developer, and builder, Segal accurately predicted San Diegans’ ripening attraction to dense urban living. He and his wife and business partner, Wendy, correctly assumed a revitalized downtown would attract people looking for distinctively designed row houses and lofts that engage the street. Segal designed and built a series of flexible live-work dwellings on what were then downtown’s fringes [RECORD, January 2003, page 180, and March 1999, page 91].

Segal’s latest project, The Titan, stands opposite the roaring San Diego Freeway (Interstate 5) and between two contrasting buildings. One is a demure old residential structure with a stepped parapet, cornice, and double-hung windows. An assertive assemblage of rental lofts surmounted by private towers designed and built by Smith and Others, a small but influential San Diego firm, flanks The Titan’s other side. Segal chose his building’s name partly to match the power of its neighbor, The Essex, which Ted Smith named for, and modeled after, an aircraft carrier.

Segal saw a need for rental housing on the edge of Little Italy, a small, walkable downtown neighborhood between the freeway and San Diego Bay that because of its character and location attracted redevelopment at lightning speed. New condominium towers and full-block housing complexes now crowd around its low-rise main street, which is lined with Italian restaurants, small businesses, and trendy new shops.

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Formal name of Project:
The Titan

Location:
San Diego

Gross square footage:
28,000 sq. ft.

Total construction cost:
$2.4 Million

Owner:
Jonathan Segal

Architect:
Jonathan Segal Architect
1165 19th St.
San Diego, CA 92102
www.jonathansegalarchitect.com