The Plaza- UTC - Landscape Improvements
- Project Address: Corner of La Jolla Village Drive and Genesee Avenue
- Project Owner/ Developer: Irvine Company
- Project Architect/ Designer: Land Arc + West
Irvine Companies purchased two large blocks in the Golden Triangle area of San Diego, right across from University Town Center Mall. They've done extensive landscape improvements throughout the entire complex...definitely in the hundreds of thousands. When Valley Crest started with pulling out all of the grass along La Jolla Village Drive and Genesee Avenue I thought "wow...they're responding to the drought we have going on and removing all of the unusable, water thirsty grass".....but no...they turned around and replaced all of the grass with cool season grass....even worse than what was there before. It makes no sense whatsoever. Most of the grass is on a slope too. Wouldn't you think that when you're spending that much money in landscape improvements you would implement changes that would save you money...and at the same time save water? Terrible terrible design...they deserve an Onion for this given the drought tolerant climate that we are in. The City should implement restrictions on grass in commercial applications...all City's should be doing this. And what about those horrid signs?? Has anyone complained to the City that these are larger than the sign ordinance allows?? If Irvine Company wants a bigger presence in San Diego they need to come with some design sense. Giving them an Onion for this blatant disregard for water conservation is a good start.





Project Awarded
"Irvine Companies purchased two large blocks in the Golden Triangle area right across from UTC Mall. During these drought conditions they revamped their landscape to have even more grass put in than before! The jury has weighed in: this project’s landscape improvements are viewed as a blatant disregard for good design & water conservation."