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The Casey Brown Company is close to completing the first part of the revamp of the former home of The San Diego Union–Tribune into a modern and highly amenitized work campus, that will now be called AMP&RSAND.
The 330,000-square-foot site featuring two separate buildings is located at 350 Camino de la Reina in Mission Valley.
The repositioned five-story office tower, where editors and journalists once published the newspaper, will be completed in the third quarter, and the adjacent three-story building, which housed the printing presses, will be delivered in the first quarter of 2018. Both properties are 165,000 square feet, each.
The interior design has an industrial loft-style feel, featuring exposed brick, concrete pillars, 13-foot ceilings and oversized windows. The amount of money spent on the renovations is undisclosed.
Matt Carlson, Jeff Oesterblad and Ryan Grant of the Los Angeles- based CBRE Group will be leasing the property.
“The campus offers large, collaborative spaces to accommodate a company’s growth,” said CBRE Group senior vice president Carlson in a press release. “The floorplates will entice and retain talented employees with amenities that go beyond the nine-to-five workdays of the past.”
The campus features nine patios and 64,000 square feet of outdoor collaborative space as well as an amphitheater for multifunction gatherings.
A central meeting place called the treehouse is a patio space under a massive ficus tree, planted by Helen Copley, with hanging chairs, hammocks and meeting areas.
The campus also boasts additional outdoor spaces and parks both within and between the buildings as well as along the San Diego River.
“When the Union Tribune stopped its presses in 2016, it made one final impression with the last characters of the traditional alphabet — the ampersand,” said Casey Brown, principal of Casey Brown. “AMP&RSAND is a historic location reimagined for the demands of the modern workforce. This final impression was not to mark the end of an era, but to signify that the best is yet to come, and we welcome you to explore the AMP&RSAND campus.”
Other amenities include a fitness studio equipped with spa-like lockers and showers for all tenants, concierge services such as valet parking, Craft Coffee Café, as well as an on-site bike center.
Positive fundamentals in the fourth quarter contributed to an overall strong year for the San Diego office market, according to the latest CBRE research.
Vacancy fell to a new historic low during the last three months of the year, while average asking lease rates increased from the previous quarter and year. Large blocks of highly amenitized and contiguous space are very difficult to secure, paving the way for a successful delivery of the AMP&RSAND campus.
The campus is located near intersection Interstate 8 and state Route 163, and is in walking distance to the Green Line Trolley stop and Fashion Valley mall.
For more information, visit ampersandiego.com.
