What’s Driving Development in San Diego

John Kratzer and Luke Daniels listen as Stacey Pennington describes Makers Quarter.

SAN DIEGO—The former American dream has been eclipsed by what SLP Urban Planning’s principal and founder Stacey Pennington calls “tactical urbanism”—a desire to connect, collaborate and live, work and play in a denser environment, even in development-resistant San Diego, said speakers on the Power Panel during yesterday’s RealShare San Diego here. While Millennials are very much involved in this movement—and many say they are driving it—Baby Boomers are also caught up in it for different reasons.

“People want to trust the stories you’re creating,” said Pennington, to the question of what’s driving her company’s new developments (in her case, Makers Quarter, which is preparing to develop a 50,000-square-foot office project called Block D as part of its larger office-development plans). “There’s definitely a backlash to the volume of suburbia—huge closets so you can store the toilet paper you bought at Costco—both socially and culturally. They want to be part of a strong value structure.”