What and Where

IDEA1 is a mixed-use, full city block, development in downtown San Diego. Consisting of 292 apartments, office, and retail space for the popular Lola 55 restaurant. The project features a 16,000 square foot public/private plaza called the HUB, designed to build “community” among its residents and nearby neighbors. Programming of this space includes concerts, group exercise, an urban flee market, concerts, and dance performances.  

What and Where

Planting trees is one of the most significant ways to improve the social, mental, environmental health and economic well-being of the city. URBAN INTERVENTIONS co-created and partially funds an ongoing effort to replant missing street trees throughout downtown, , working with Downtown San Diego Partnership’s Clean & Safe program. In 3 years, 355 trees have been replaced, a comprehensive tree inventory using GIS mapping has been completed and the program has expanded to include tree maintenance, education and community engagement. This has attracted grants and funds from individuals, businesses and like-minded organizations.

For more information, visit Grow Urban at https://downtownsandiego.org/explore/grow-urban/

What and Why

Utilizing art created by partner Pete Garcia, URBAN INTERVENTIONS is able to contribute 100% of the proceeds to worthy initiatives and causes. This has included supporting first-year college students at SDSU, who are the first in their families to attend a university. Currently, proceeds from the catalogue are supporting Grow Urban in providing funds to plant missing street trees in downtown. To access the catalogue here’s the link. 

What and Where

Demonstrating that simple interventions can improve the appeal of any street, URBAN INTERVENTIONS worked with local property owners along a single block in downtown San Diego’s East Village. Fixing a broken streetlamp, replanting a missing tree, removing barbwire fencing and a general clean-up made a huge difference. A portion of the block is under redevelopment and existing properties have been greatly improved.

What and Where

A free pop-up street-poet happening on the evening of December 14, 2018 created and funded by URBAN INTERVENTIONS. The goal was to bring together the disparate communities of downtown to share stories on the themes of Compassion, Community and Tolerance – featuring three well known story-tellers Gil Sotu, Bridget Gray and Viet Mah accompanied by a saxophone and bongo drums. The East Village location was revealed one hour before the event via social media.

What and Where

Window Stories is a public art project created and partly funded by URBAN INTERVENTIONS to enhance the public space along E Street in San Diego’s East Village (downtown San Diego). It transformed a large wall of the Salvation Army retail store, that was frequently tagged, to tell four unique stories through 3-dimensional “windows” with light and motion-activated sound. While designed as impermanent, the 4 light boxes were up for more than 3 years. Tagging has essentially stopped, and the nearby area transformed. The installation has been embraced by the local community, including area homeless.

What and Where

Nothing is more boring, impersonal, and a big target for taggers in a city than a construction fence, but certainly not the one for IDEA1 – a project in downtown San Diego. A bold black and white painted geometric design on its construction fence served as the perfect background for a series of revolving “Stories” painted on 4′ X 8′ plywood sheets by students of the K-8 school Urban Discovery Academy located across the street. The “Stories” were replaced by new editions as previous ones were taken down and auctioned to raise funds for the school.

This project fostered a new spirit of community collaboration – a win-win for the students and school to raise funds and for the community who got to enjoy the aesthetic value of the construction fence, including the benefit of only having a handful of tags in 18 months.