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SAN DIEGO—Civita, the transit-oriented urban village in Mission Valley, gets its appeal in part from timing and in part from its master plan, developer Sudberry Properties' SVP Marco Sessa tells GlobeSt.com. Homes in the community have won awards on the local, regional and national level, including a host of Icon awards from the San Diego Building Industry Association. We spoke exclusively with Sessa about his firm's approach to this project and what has made it so successful.

GlobeSt.com: What makes Civita such an award-winning development?

Sessa: I think the master plan has something to do with it. The timing—coming out of a recession—has a lot to do with it, too. A lot of folks on both the multifamily and single-family side spent the downturn really thinking about how to reinvent themselves and prepare as the economy got better. Home configurations weren't the same as what had been done in the past. The market was demanding something different, and the infill nature of the master plan was conducive to trying new things. Also, we were trying to a do a little bit higher density with the attached configurations. We needed to get creative to come up with the appropriate market segmentation—that can really push the creativity envelope.

GlobeSt.com: What are the secrets to approaching a development that wins so many awards?

Sessa: I think part of it is our own investment goals. We are not a merchant builder where we build stuff, then turn around and sell it. We thought of the master plan with a long-term view of ownership as income properties—either multifamily or office—to keep in our portfolio. We spend a lot of time on architecture on all of our projects because of this long-term-hold mentality. If we were going to turn around and sell it, we wouldn't make the same decisions to spend more up front and create value. Some developers take the view of “build it, and then sell everything out and we're done,” and that's not us. We expect to be involved with this master plan decades after the last construction takes place.

We're also fortunate that the for-sale home builders like Shea Homes and Ryland really bought into the master plan pushed the envelope on design. A lot of credit is due on their end as well. Also, in design, we're seeing a lot of new materials that have become affordable, which is exciting. The countertop materials and cabinets that are being done are much more affordable, and these little things create an environment that drives the project.

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GlobeSt.com: What do you have planned next for Civita?

Sessa: The first mixed-use project there will break ground in about a year, and it will include a grocery store whose name I can't reveal yet. Also, we are working with San Diego Unified School District on a K-5 elementary school featuring a new set of guidelines the district adopted last year called i21Now, which looks at curriculum, facilities design and sustainability and how the 21^st Century learning environment should take place. We're working out the details on this development with the district, and they've approved negotiations on the land. A large central park will be open for residents next year, and we're in the initial phases of design for an apartment community that will total about 450 homes; that will start construction in about a year. We're working with two new home builders to build two new neighborhoods of for-sale housing. Land sales for that are in their infancy, but we will be breaking ground on them with three new home products, some single-family and some three-story row homes with roof decks. About four months from now, we'll break ground on a recreational and club facility for the for-sale residences that integrates into the large central park, and the main part of this park leads up to a large waterfall.

GlobeSt.com: What else do you have in the pipeline besides Civita?

Sessa: I'm personally overseeing a couple of other projects, including a mixed-use residential/retail project in Carroll Canyon and a project in Oceanside that goes along with the 22 soccer fields we built there. We're looking for some developable portions in that master plan. The soccer fields were developed over several decades, and we were selected by the City of Oceanside to bring some commercial and residential elements to the master plan. Also, we're working on a grocery-anchored shopping-center project in Imperial Beach, an industrial project that's under entitlement in Chula Vista, a retail/office mixed-use project in Scripps Ranch called the Watermark and another shopping center in Chula Vista in the Millenia master plan.