Cement company Lehigh Hanson is converting a defunct gravel mine into an 1,800-unit, millennial-focused mixed-use and residential community.
The development, called 3roots San Diego, will be located in northern San Diego County. If built, the project would be constructed over what remains of the Carroll Canyon mine, a concrete aggregate and gravel mine that ceased operations in 2016. The development, according to Brian Meyers, a consultant for Lehigh Hanson, represents an “alternative” to prototypical urban environments for millennial individuals looking to start a family. Meyers told the San Diego Union Tribune that the development aims to provide some of the “urban lifestyle amenities” like walkability and density of use that make traditional urban areas desirable, but will do so in a more family-oriented environment.
The barren 412-acre site is sandwiched between a series of suburban-style residential communities, other mining operations, and an industrial district. 3roots San Diego aims to convert the site into an interlocking network of mixed-use and residential areas bisected by parkland and hiking trails. The project was originally envisioned in 1994 to include a 50-acre industrial district, but a recently-updated plan has scrapped that component in favor of more park space.
The development is to be laid out with a mixed-use “innovation district” at its core that will maintain transit connections to a forthcoming extension of San Diego’s light rail system. The so-called Village Core area will feature 749 apartments, 120,000 square feet of retail spaces, and 20,000 square feet of creative office. Renderings for the project depict two parallel rows of warehouse-style structures surrounding a generous pedestrian courtyard. Other scattered mixed-use buildings will fill out the remainder of development’s main node with apartments, and the developer will gradually add attached and detached single family homes up and down the hilly site.
A series of parks will wrap the site’s edges to allow for connections to existing and new public streets and trails. Overall, 3roots San Diego will have 201 acres of open space overall, including 40 acres of publicly-accessible parks and hiking trails.
Residential areas for the project will be laid out according to density, with the project’s 310 attached single-family homes sandwiched between the more dense Village Core and a zone containing 746 detached single-family homes. Renderings depict manicured rows of apartments, townhouses, and detached homes amid lush, hilly landscapes.
Public meetings and and environmental reviews for the project are scheduled to completed in 2018. The developers aim to complete the first homes for the project in 2021 with final buildout by 2025. See the 3roots San Diego site for more information.
