Murfey Company is transforming San Diego neighborhoods — from Point Loma to North Park to Pacific Beach — and doing something about the City’s troubling housing shortage at the same time. It’s called “urban infill.”
“We’ve become experts on urban infill and multi-family construction,” said Jesse Lyons, Murfey Company’s director of operations and marketing. “Not just from a building standpoint, but from a standpoint of pre-construction and offering consultant services on financing. We are a developer, a general contractor and also an investment management company.”
What’s the intrinsic value of urban infill projects?
“San Diego has a housing shortage, obviously,” said Lyons, who’s been with the company for four years. “We’re able to provide on a small lot a multi-family solution versus just a single-family solution. This increases the amount of housing available and hopefully starts to meet the demand.” In short, he said: “It’s increasing the density, which allows us to accommodate a larger population of folks who need a place to live.”
The resulting gentrification considerably raises the value of a neighborhood, Lyons explained, though he pointed out that Murfey Company, which was founded by Scott and Russell Murfey, exercises thoughtful planning and sensitivity when involved in a project that goes into an established neighborhood of perhaps longtime residents.
“It starts with careful planning,” he pointed out, “and part of that is going to the local improvement councils and allowing the community, to a certain degree, to have some involvement. So you get buy-in. It’s smart design, something that’s not going to be so out of place that it just makes everybody angry. It fits and it inspires others to try and match that style.”
Lyons cited a few of the urban infill projects of which Murfey Company is particularly proud: Blue Point Townhomes and Famosa Townhomes in Point Loma, Crest Urban Apartments in Hillcrest, and Exotic Gardens and The Evelyn in North Park. Another 81-unit luxury apartment property (with two commercial spaces), formerly called Driftwood but renamed the Californian, is scheduled to be completed by next summer.
That’s only part of what Lyons foresees for Murfey Company in the year ahead.
“The big change for 2018 is we’re looking to build more for ourselves,” he said. “More development projects where we in turn will hire general contractors to build. You’re going to see a lot more Murfey Company projects.”
Murfey Company, formerly known simply as Murfey Construction, underwent a brand expansion over the past year. Its divisions today include Murfey Construction (general contracting, construction management, preconstruction services), Veritas Urban Properties (real estate development) and BidRancher (software application development).
Murfey Company is at 2050 Hancock St., Suite B, San Diego. (858) 459-6865. murfeycompany.com
This article originally appeared in the La Jolla Light.