SAN DIEGO – Raleigh, North Carolina-based Kimley-Horn’s San Diego presence is big and getting bigger.
Already one of the largest employers of engineers in the region, Kimley-Horn quietly opened a new North County office in Escondido last year.
“That comes on the heels of a really exciting project on Grand Avenue that was pretty transformative for downtown Escondido,” said Kimley-Horn California Regional Leader Matt McCormick. “A lot of North County municipalities are great clients of ours and we continue to serve them as they build their infrastructure.”
The new office in Escondido at 500 La Terraza Blvd. has 15 employees and is one of Kimley-Horn’s three new offices in the state. Locally, the firm employs 156 at its San Diego and Escondido offices. Statewide, it employs around 850 at 16 offices, with five more “on the slate” to open in California in the near-term, McCormick said.
The firm’s San Diego office was established in 1992, initially starting with just three practice areas – roadway, transportation and development services. The office has since expanded into landscape architecture, renewable energy, structures, water/wastewater and environmental services.
“Largely, our growth in San Diego has been organic, hiring high-quality leaders in the industry who build teams and grow them in their particular disciplines,” McCormick said. “We provide platform that lets them grow their practice with all the resources provided.”
McCormick said it was the ability to be a leader and grow a team that enticed him to leave a small firm in Texas and join Kimley-Horn years ago, as well as the opportunities of having more resources to tap into.
“Expertise from wastewater treatment to landscape architecture to folks who know how to do public roadway projects,” he said of the firm’s platform he described as “a catalyst to empowering and unleashing professionals in the industry.”
Private, Public Projects
Kimley-Horn has done engineering work on high-profile projects in both public and private sectors.
On the public side, the firm was tapped by the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) to provide transit-related services for the Metropolitan Transit System’s (MTS) largest transit program in San Diego’s history – a $698 million trolley renewal project, that included design services for the reconstruction of the 12 trolley stations along the trolly’s Blue Line corridor from Barrio Logan to San Ysidro.
Kimley-Horn also worked with SANDAG and MTS as main consultant on creating 26 miles of rapid transit bus lines throughout the region.
The City of San Diego and Caltrans hired Kimley-Horn to prepare the project approval and environmental documentation and the plans, specifications, and estimates for the reconstruction of the I-5/Genesee Avenue interchange in San Diego, which included a pedestrian bridge over the freeway and was recognized by the American Society of Civil Engineers in 2019 as the San Diego Project of the Year.
Another major transportation project the firm worked on was developing bake lanes across the city of San Diego.
“And on the private side we’re proud that have one of the first residential buildings coming up near Snapdragon Stadium – Avalon Bay Communities is coming out of the ground there – that’s an exciting project,” McCormick said, adding that the SDSU West project in Mission Valley remains an opportunity for future work. “As they build out the grid and parcels, there are housing and other developments that will pop up and are being solicited at different stages. [Avalon Bay] was one of the early ones that came out of the ground, and we were fortunately part of that.”
Major Redevelopments
Kimley-Horn is also fortunate to be a part of one of San Diego’s most transformative redevelopments. The embattled Midway Rising project is currently on hold after a California Supreme Court ruling upheld a 30-foot height restriction in San Diego’s Midway area.
Voters approved the project that would add housing and an entertainment district – and much taller buildings – in the site of the current Sports Arena and surrounding parts of the Midway area. Developers are currently appealing the court decision on the grounds that state density bonus laws supersede the height restriction rule.
For Midway Rising, Kimley-Horn developed the transportation plan, one that would replace some lanes of traffic for other mobility choices like fast bus lanes and dedicated bike lanes.
“These are the types of projects that get us really excited. They’re the ones that have a lot of input and creative thinking and really trying to intimately understand the constraints that drive the project forward,” McCormick said, adding that he sees the Midway Rising project’s transportation plan as “changing how people move.”
“This project will give a lot of variety of mobility options that maybe you can live there without owning a car,” he said, adding that the pressures of adding density make engineers “think creatively” for solutions to accommodate for more people who may need to adapt to different ways of getting about.
“If there is flexibility in the solutions and there are options, I think ultimately people will find what works best for them,” he said. “We have to think differently because density is relieving the demand throughout these areas where people want to live and ultimately want to recreate, dine and those sorts of things.”
Beyond mobility, Kimley-Horn is seeing momentum in its wastewater group, where it is picking up new triable community clients, as well as recent growth in EMP services.
“Energy is a big play in California for the firm,” McCormick said.
Kimley-Horn
FOUNDED: 1967
HEADQUARTERS: Raleigh, North Carolina
CEO: Brent Mutti
SENIOR LOCAL MANAGER: Matt McCormick
BUSINESS: engineering
EMPLOYEES: ~9,900
SAN DIEGO EMPLOYEES: 156
LOCAL CONTACT: (619) 234-9411
WEBSITE: www.kimley-horn.com
NOTABLE: Kimley-Horn is one of the largest employers of engineers in the San Diego region.
