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Architect and developer Jonathan Segal talks about his meteoric success and what’s next for the $45 million man
Jonathan Segal was a successful architect and developer before he turned 30. He was the youngest San Diego architect to be named a fellow of the American Institute of Architects and has created a thriving business – without clients.
“We are not the traditional for-hire firm,” Segal said.
Choosing to fill the role of architect and developer has given him an unparalleled ability to pursue his own creative vision, although occasionally, he does make an exception for special clients and projects.
Since launching his own office in the early 1990s, he has built more than 20 buildings, most with rental units. Around 2006, he sold many of the projects he designed, some 140 units, for a reported $45 million.
Now in his late 40s, he moved from a custom home that he built in La Jolla called The Prospect and now lives in the penthouse of The Q, a new apartment and retail building in Little Italy he designed and built.
On a recent morning after a summer holiday, he sat at Influx, a coffee shop at the bottom of his building. He shouted his hellos to passersby and was briefly joined by his daughter, Brittany — a sculptor — and son, Matthew — who also has a degree in architecture and works with his father.
Jonathan took a few minutes to answer questions from the Villager, before being whisked off by his son in a Prius with a Rottweiler in the back to supervise construction at his upcoming project.
On his inspiration to become an architect
He calls it destiny.
“I think that was something that was in my genes from my parents, my mother being an artist, and my dad being a competitive athlete,” Jonathan said.
This combination of genetic gifts gave him the traits he needed to succeed.
“You have to be strong-willed and have artistic talent,” he said.
Just don’t call it luck
Despite arguably having perfect timing for San Diego’s downtown revitalization, Jonathan said serendipity is mostly preparation.
“I don’t believe really in the word ‘luck,’ ” he said. “I think you sort of make your own fortune, by working hard and just happening to be there at the right time.”
His business model of becoming the architect as developer was launched by a contractor, who he approached when he wanted to start his own firm. “He said ‘No you want to do your own project,’ ” Jonathan said.
Jonathan ended up buying a piece of land from the contractor’s mother, who was land rich but cash poor and building his first project, called “7 on Kettner”.
The Q
Photo Courtesy of MCASD
Small is beautiful
The period when San Diego was expanding its downtown urban housing was perfect for an architect with a different vision.
“No one was really studying urban housing,” Jonathan said. “No one was providing anything that was unique.
Everybody was sort of following everybody else. No one really understood truly how to develop urban property. And we did very small projects that [only] needed a very small audience and they were successful. I think we provided a better product at a less expensive price. And people always like that.”
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Hsieh Residence
Photo and artwork by Victor Angelo
Tangling with triangles
The Prospect in La Jolla was built on a triangular piece of land that used to be a gas station.
“We had to make sense of a triangular lot, which is very difficult to do,” he said. “We had these strange leftover spaces. And the leftover spaces need to make sense, so we respected the grid of the block and tried to make simple pure spaces with the leftover parts.”
A lucky, er, serendipitous break came from removing the gas station’s tanks. Rather than recompacting the dirt and filling in the excavated area, he added a basement.
“It made a fabulous space — glass on top of it to bring lighting in,” he said. “The city was nice enough to put in a 9-foot wall that buffered the sound of the street. So we had this private oasis in the business district of downtown La Jolla.”
The Prospect Three-story
Photo courtesy Jonathan Segal
On popular perception of modern architecture
Will the kind of buildings that get architecture geeks excited, ever be popular with mainstream Americans? Well, maybe.
“With the proper design and the proper landscaping it can actually be something that people like,” he said.
“It doesn’t have to be Tuscan. It doesn’t have to be Nuevo Spanish or some kind of recreation of a previous period.”
He tells the story of some friends that he introduced to The Prospect.
“Friends that lived, in what I call a wonderful ‘Hansel and Gretel’ house,” he said. “And they even told me before they got there they were scared to come over because they didn’t want to have to lie to say they liked the house. And when they got there, they saw how it all opened up and they loved it. They were surprised themselves that they liked the house.”
On working
with clients
He numbers the clients he has worked with at three.
“For us to do another client would have to be a pretty special client and a pretty special site,” he said.
On selling at the peak of the market
Some would think that Jonathan must have some kind of crystal ball. After all, his timing in real estate has been incredible.
“We didn’t plan on it,” he said “That wasn’t our goal. That wasn’t our business plan. [The buyers] were paying at least 100 percent more than the rental market was worth and that afforded us the opportunity to do this project [The Q in Little Italy].”
Lemperle Residence
Photos courtesy Jonathan Segal
On the future
He is breaking ground on a new 25-unit apartment building on India Street near Washington Street, although personally he says his office needs to slow it down a bit. However, he only sees upside in the real estate market now.
“If you’ve ever wanted to build something, now is — I think in my lifetime — the lowest prices you are going to see in building,” he said. “Land has dropped and the prices have dropped. There is only going to be a high-side to that.
Everything is going up. Permits aren’t going down. Cost of construction isn’t going down. Cost of the land isn’t going down. Cost of the money isn’t going down.”
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