Look for changes along Poway Road this year – The San Diego Union-Tribune

A year from now, residents will likely look back on 2020 as the year things really started to change on and around Poway Road.

The City Council two years ago approved a significant overhaul of the Poway Road Specific Plan, which governs how the roadway running through the citys center will be developed over the next two decades.

The first post-approval project to move forward was The Outpost, a mixed-use residential/retail development with two stories of underground parking. That development is more than a year behind schedule, largely the result of the contractor dealing with costly water intrusion issues.

However, anyone driving down Poway later this year will notice new action on the south side of the road in the vicinity of Tarascan and Civic Center drives. Thats where contractors for Meridian Development will begin knocking down 10 vacant buildings to make way for 83 market-rate condos and prepare three lots for later development as retail/commercial use. Meridian will also begin work on a 44-unit, three-story affordable senior citizens apartment complex across the street, followed by 14 market-rate condos directly behind. The entire project is known as the Poway Commons.

Poway Community Park, to the south of where the 83 condos will be built, will undergo an upgrade with the anticipated spring start of construction of the Mickey Cafagna Community Center. The existing auditorium and senior center, along with a small city office building, will be torn down within a couple of months to make way for the $9.9 million construction project. When finished in May 2021, the center will have two large meeting rooms, six classrooms and offices.

Further west, on Pomerado Road at Oak Knoll Road, work is expected to be completed by fall on Villa de Vida, a two-story, 54-unit affordable housing development serving adults with disabilities who can live independently.

City Manager Chris Hazeltine said his priorities for the new year include keeping all of this work on track, along with the Espola Road undergrounding project.

The contractor for the Espola Road utility line undergrounding project has completed the trenching and conducting installation on the first half of the project. The next step will be for San Diego Gas & Electric crews to begin cabling activities sometime this month. City spokeswoman Renee Carmichael said that work is expected to take about six months to complete and will be followed by similar cabling work by Cox Communications and AT&E crews. Utility pole removal will take place once all overhead wiring has been removed, she said. That will be followed by a city project to construct a pedestrian pathway down one side of the roadway.

This is also an election year in Poway, with two district council seats up on the November ballot. Councilman Barry Leonard is running for re-election in District 2. Councilwoman Caylin Frank, elected to a two-year citywide term in 2018, will be seeking a full four-year term representing District 4.

A likely addition to the ballot will be a measure regarding The Farm in Poway, a 160-home development on the site of the closed StoneRidge County Club. A full environmental impact report is due out for public review and comment later this month. The City Council is expected to review the development sometime during the spring.

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Look for changes along Poway Road this year - The San Diego Union-Tribune