Horton Plaza Redevelopment Reaches New Heights

A revised downtown skyline is taking shape as the $330 million high-tech office campus and lifestyle center transforms the space in Horton Plaza’s old footprint.

Demolition at the Gaslamp landmark Horton Plaza began in June of last year, then took off in earnest in 2021. Now, though, the revised downtown skyline is taking shape as the $330 million high-tech office campus and lifestyle center transforms the space in Horton Plaza’s old footprint.

On Wednesday, in fact, the developers of the Campus at Horton, Stockdale Capital Partners, held a topping-off ceremony at Building A, the former location of Nordstrom. The former five-story site now soars 10 stories into the San Diego sky, boasting 700,000 square feet of office space and enough retail real estate to bring the project up to a cool 1 million square feet. That’s a bump of 400,000 square feet from the old Horton Plaza.

On hand to acknowledge Wednesday’s milestone and sign the final beam were local luminaries, including San Diego mayor Todd Gloria and Stockdale’s Dan Michaels and other execs, who, like everyone at the event, was masked up and tried to stay a socially distanced 6 feet apart.

The old mall was purchased for $175 million in 2018 and plans to redevelop the site kicked off soon after.

Stockdale, a Los Angeles-based commercial real estate developer, hopes the project will attract Silicon Valley technology companies. The project is expected to be completed sometime next year.