The Union

With bold moves that respond to context, Jonathan Segal, FAIA, transforms a ramshackle site into an urban mixed-use project.

By Jane F. Kolleeny
This is an excerpt of an article from the June 2008 edition of Architectural Record.

Whoever thought an architectural practice could function without clients? Jonathan Segal, FAIA, and a group of his colleagues in San Diego have built their firms on such a strategy. Joining the ranks with Segal, architects Ted Smith, Sebastian Mariscal, and Lloyd Russell, AIA, function as their own clients, buying infill lots and condemned buildings in neglected but gentrifying areas around the city’s core. Then they finance, design, construct, and in some cases, manage the mostly residential and mixed-use projects they undertake, accepting the requisite liability of ownership with its accompanying creative freedom and financial opportunity. While this approach is not for the faint of heart, these architecture/business pioneers hope the rewards outweigh the risks, and so far they seem to have been right..

This entrepreneurial spirit has resulted in an emerging frontier of professional practice—the architect as developer. Segal, with only three clients in his 19-year career, began offering courses last fall to sold-out audiences of architects in Los Angeles on how they can copy his example. The Union, Segal’s latest in a series of projects modeled on this approach, gets its name from a former textile union building from the 1970s on a 20,000-square-foot lot in the Golden Hill district of San Diego.

Located on the outskirts of downtown just east of Interstate 5, the Golden Hill neighborhood consists of an eclectic mix of the city’s most historically significant pre-1900 architecture. Colonial Revival and Victorian houses and town houses, along with Craftsman and Farmhouse bungalows, take their places alongside more recently built commercial structures and apartments. Favored by the art crowd who have been priced out of other parts of the city, this pedestrian-friendly area provides distant views of San Diego Harbor and is within walking distance of Balboa Park—with its rich offering of museums, gardens, and the famous San Diego Zoo.

When Segal bought it, the site featured the dilapidated former union building sandwiched between a pair of parking lots. A city maintenance yard and Interstate 5 surround the site, offering the perfect hodgepodge backdrop to challenge Segal’s brand of intervention. In 2005, Segal and 11 other developers submitted proposals to purchase the property. Unlike the rest of the developers, he saw opportunities in preserving the existing building, which if maintained would grandfather-in commercial use, making the property more valuable and flexible. It would also save on demolition costs. “Not only did keeping the existing building make complete business sense, but it preserved the soul of the project [the Union]. Urbanistically and sustainably, it was simply the right thing to do,” says Segal.

Formal name of project: The Union

Location: 1945 B Street, San Diego CA 92102

Size:
22,567sqft @ $93.00 per sqft

Office rehabilitation: 4,574sqft @ $52.00 per sqft

Cost: $2,336,579 million

Completion date: January 2007

Owner: Jonathan Segal

Architect:
Jonathan Segal, FAIA
1945 B Street
San Diego, Califormia 92102
Tel: 619-255-1315
Fax: 619-255-1034
www.jonathansegalarchitect.com

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