San Diego’s most iconic architectural tower sat closed and vacant for over 80 years until the invisible architects came in.

A century ago, the dramatic structure we now know as the California Building greeted visitors to the 1915–16 Panama–California Exposition in Balboa Park. It was covered in ornate pilasters, colorful tiles shone on its domed roof, and an attached eight-story tower surveyed the expo below. The building resembled a church, yet attendees who stepped inside expecting a sermon instead encountered an exhibit called The Story of Man Through the Ages. The showcase would inspire the building’s longtime-permanent use as the Museum of Us (formerly the Museum of Man).

Its tower became famous but furtive. Shut to the public in 1935, it spent decades as an instantly recognizable but inaccessible landmark. Finally, the museum decided that the California Tower would reopen for tours by 2015 and be outfitted for earthquake safety by 2020.

The challenge was significant. In order to keep it secure during seismic shifts, the whole structure needed steel braces, concrete walls, and tension rods—major infrastructure that had to remain a secret; hidden so that it didn’t alter the tower’s legendary look.

The people who completed the work were secret, too. Sort of.

“We call ourselves ‘invisible architects,’” says David Marshall, principal architect at Heritage Architecture & Planning, the firm tasked with restoring the California Tower. “Most architects going through school, their dream is to create something that’s never been created before. That’s not what preservation architects do. We are following the footsteps of great designers, and we don’t want to leave our fingerprints on everything we work on.”

Marshall has spent the last 35 years returning iconic San Diego structures to their original shine: Balboa Theatre, the Top Gun house, Hotel del Coronado, and the Western Metal Supply Co. building, to name a few. And those are just the well-known ones. San Diego has more than 1,000 buildings—from modest homes to multi-story civic structures—that qualify as historic for various reasons.

“Number one is age: It has to be over 30 years old,” says Cathy Herrick, who founded the development company San Diego Historic Properties with her father Leon in 1984. (Though that’s not a hard-and-fast rule—Marshall’s team was able to help top local architect Jonathan Segal designate three of his buildings constructed after 2000, since any structure proven to be architecturally significant is up for consideration.)

“Second, it has to have enough of its original fabric—like 90 percent,” Herrick continues. The preservationist’s ultimate goal is to gently repair and, if absolutely necessary, replace weakened or damaged portions of the building while making modern safety and accessibility upgrades.

Marshall and his team completed a $160 million renovation at the Hotel del Coronado last year, and even seemingly minor details required some creative problem-solving.

“We were trying to bring back the historic handrails around the front porch,” he explains. “They were built in 1888, so they didn’t meet the current code—they were only 29 inches tall instead of 42 inches tall.” On top of their diminutive stature, the handrails had seven-inch gaps between their pickets, more than twice the current safety requirement of less than four inches. The Heritage Architecture team’s solution: build exact replicas of the original handrails, but add a frameless glass rail behind them that’s only visible up close.

At The Beau—Herrick’s $5 million restoration of an 1886 Gaslamp Quarter hotel said to have been a favorite haunt of Al Capone—“there was a section of redwood staircase banisters and posts that were deteriorated,” Herrick says. “We took the pieces that remained and sent them to Northern California to a guy who specializes in hand-tilling [creating a distressed appearance on the redwood]. He made new pieces to match the historic.”

Restoring an old building for a new purpose—which preservation architects call adaptive reuse—can become even trickier. “Standard number one is to find a new use that’s compatible with the historic use,” like turning an old hotel into apartments, Marshall says.

His team transformed the Western Metal Supply Co. building at Petco Park into suites and a team store for Padres fans. “Warehouses like that are the easiest to convert because they’re usually large, open spaces with very few columns and partitions,” he explains. Any additions can be torn out by future preservationists, returning the building to its original state.

All these efforts to preserve the past don’t come cheap. “At The Beau Hotel, we wanted to put back the original 140-year-old bay windows. There were only eight of them, but it would have cost me $750,000,” Herrick says. “You sometimes have to make the economic decision to go with something that looks like the original but really is new.”

Another challenge is that skilled artisans capable of restoring and replicating historical designs and materials are becoming increasingly rare. Over her four-decade career, Herrick utilized craftspeople—some in their 80s—who specialize in unique skills like repointing historic brick or reworking century-old window sashes. “Those guys aren’t around anymore,” she says. “It’s a lost art.”

Historical preservation may also be under threat from a policy perspective. As of now, the City of San Diego automatically reviews any building that’s over 45 years old before it’s demolished or its exterior is altered. But with the city’s current focus on densification and increased housing, Marshall says, “there seems to be a lot of push for fewer restrictions on new construction in historic neighborhoods.”

A proposed amendment to the current Heritage Preservation program would alter that automatic review process because it is “a reactive and, overall, less efficient approach to historic preservation,” says Kelley Stanco, deputy director of Climate, Preservation & Public Spaces for the City Planning Department. “Of the roughly 3,500 properties reviewed every year, 85 to 90 percent are found to have no potential historic significance. In addition to creating unnecessary delays for project applicants, it is an ineffective use of city resources that could be more effectively spent proactively surveying and identifying what is significant and bringing those properties forward for designation.”

Another suggested amendment would give the Historical Resources Board new recourse for overturning historical designations. “If a building owner wants to tear down these newly designated historic houses, they’re gonna go to the council and appeal and, depending if they have any leverage—financially or otherwise—the council could say, ‘It’s not historic anymore,’” Marshall says. He fears that the change would “open the door to nothing being able to stay designated historic and nothing being safe from demolition.”

Stanco argues that changes to the city’s Heritage Preservation program are intended “not to eliminate historic preservation, but rather to incorporate…other important factors” like housing, equity, and sustainability.

The Save Our Heritage Organization (SOHO), a nonprofit dedicated to preserving historical architecture in San Diego, recently sent a letter, signed by former members and staff of the San Diego Historical Resources Board, to Mayor Todd Gloria and the city council decrying delays in historic designation reviews and nominations, among other concerns.

Ultimately, “growth and preservation are compatible,” believes SOHO Executive Director Bruce Coons. “The fact of the matter is that even if all the eligible houses and buildings were designated, it would be one percent or less of the city’s entire housing stock.”

Coons considers many historic properties “naturally occurring affordable housing”: They already exist, for one, giving them a financial leg-up on costly new builds. They’re also typically smaller than contemporary homes, and San Diego’s Mills Act financially incentivizes homeowners to maintain their historic houses through property tax relief. A number of structures in older San Diego neighborhoods also added ADUs during the first and second World Wars, contributing to density.

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And beyond the practical, these structures contribute an inimitable texture to the local landscape. San Diego is unique for its mix of architectural styles—the famous Spanish Revival buildings, of course, but also Victorian, Pueblo-style, Art Deco, Craftsman, ranch-style, and midcentury-modern structures, spread across popular neighborhoods like Hillcrest, Bankers Hill, North Park, Point Loma, La Jolla, Logan Heights, and more.

“Our built environment is really what makes San Diego what it is,” Coons says. “It’s difficult to get meaning from a stucco box. I think San Diegans want to feel like San Diegans, and [historical buildings] provide that context, meaning, depth, and character to our lives. We realize that when they’re gone.”

About 10 miles northeast of downtown San Diego is a surprisingly dark, urban place to stargaze in Mission Trails Regional Park.

The park is shielded from city lights by its vast mountain range.

“We do love that here at the park, through the star parties that we have twice a month,” said Jennifer Morrissey, executive director of the Mission Trails Regional Park Foundation. “People can just, you know, within 10 minutes, be in an area that is almost completely dark, where they can do stargazing with experts in that area.”

This Friday night, space enthusiasts left wanting more after last week’s return of the Artemis II crew from orbiting the moon, can visit Mission Trails for a star party. It’s part of International Dark Sky Week.

The annual event led by DarkSky International has grown into a global movement to explore the celestial night sky and to protect the nighttime environment by curbing light pollution.

“It’s not just about the aesthetics of lighting, although it is nice for us humans just to be able to look up and enjoy the view of the stars,” said Eddie Lain, a dark sky advocate who is part of the Dark Sky San Diego County chapter. “There’s a lot of animals that use it for migration. For thousands of years, humans have used it for navigation and then today, most of the time for appreciation and admiration.”

Mission Trails has been doing its part to protect the night sky, Morrissey said. The park has been turning off the lights in parking lots and around the campground, which can help restore natural light cycles that wildlife need.

Research has shown that artificial lighting hurts many animals and insects. One study found that artificial light at night is a “potent evolutionary trap” and that “insects attracted to stationary artificial light sources die before morning, either through exhaustion or predation.” Another study, published last month, found that artificial lighting is altering how wildlife behave where urban land and wildland meet.

Morrissey said Mission Trails and park volunteers are working to receive a certification through DarkSky International to be recognized as an urban night sky area. In San Diego County, the international organization has certified Borrego Springs, Julian and Anza-Borrego Desert State Park as Dark Sky destinations.

According to Dark Sky San Diego County, other communities in the region are also pursuing an International Dark Sky Community certification, including Fallbrook and Valley Center.

Lain said there are many ways people can help reduce light pollution, including using light only when it is needed, choosing warmer-toned lighting whenever possible and shielding lights to concentrate lighting only where needed.

“Dark sky is not about people not wanting light,” he said. “It’s about doing it responsibly, doing it correctly.”

To stargaze and learn how to create dark skies in your community, here are Dark Sky Week events happening in San Diego County:

• Tuesday, April 14: Borrego’s Dark Sky Week Celebration at the Borrego Springs Library from 2-4 p.m. 
• Friday, April 17: Stars at West Sycamore with San Diego Astronomy Association at Mission Trails at Scripps Ranch at 7:30 p.m.
• Saturday, April 18: Daytime Solar Telescope and Nighttime Star Party at Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, from 9:30 a.m. to noon and from 8-9 p.m. at the Borrego Palm Canyon Campground Campfire Center
• Saturday, April 18: International Dark Sky Week Celebration at Santa Ysabel Nature Center from 2-10 p.m. 

After 18 years of carving out a national niche in the energy infrastructure sector, San Diego-based SOLV Energy became a public company on Feb. 11, closing out its initial public offering and trading on the NASDAQ Global Select Market.

“You’re always a little nervous because you feel like you’re throwing a big party and you don’t know who’s going to show up,” founder and CEO George Hershman said.

It turned out that there was no reason to worry, as investors gobbled up 20.5 million shares of Class A common stock at an IPO price of $25 per share for the company that’s built more than 500 solar and battery energy storage projects across the country — and has constructed, operates and maintains 150 of its own utility-scale solar and battery facilities.

“I think the strength of our investors and the support of our business was strong,” Hershman said during an interview at SOLV Energy’s headquarters in Rancho Bernardo.

The company boasts a market cap of about $5.85 billion and despite stock market jitters caused by the twists and turns with the war in Iran, SOLV Energy stock has more than held its own. It closed the trading day last Friday at $31.66 per share.

“I think investors are looking at the stability of renewables as a real way to hedge against the volatility of fossil fuels” in the wake of the hostilities, Hershman said.

But regardless of what eventually happens near-term in the Middle East, it’s widely accepted that energy demand is poised to take a dramatic leap in the U.S.

Some analysts foresee domestic electricity consumption swelling 25% in the next four years — and continuing to rise well into the next decade — due to a combination of factors, most notably the growth of data centers feeding artificial intelligence.

SOLV Energy executives believe their company is in the right place at the right time.

“We’ve never seen that kind of energy demand in the U.S. so a company like ours is well-positioned to provide that generation and service,” Hershman said. “We’re sitting in a good spot to continue to grow and capture a lot of that market opportunity … I think the investor community understands that energy demand is real.”

Legislation dubbed the “One Big Beautiful Bill” that passed on Capitol Hill and was signed into law last summer by President Donald Trump cracked down on the 30% federal tax credit on solar and wind power. But a safe harbor provision for utility-scale projects is in place until July 4,  and those that meet a “begin construction” deadline have as late as 2030 to receive the credit.

“It really didn’t create much of an impact on our business,” Hershman said. “Energy demand is what is driving our market now, not tax incentives.”

Microsoft is in the process of resurrecting one of the nuclear power units at Three Mile Island to provide electricity to fuel its AI data centers. Some tech titans are casting their eyes on natural gas plants for the same reason.

But Hershman says SOLV Energy has an advantage.

“A gas plant is going to take you seven to 10 years to build. A nuclear plant is going to take you a few decades to build, at best,” he said. But a solar and storage plant “can be deployed and be sending megawatt-hours to the grid in 12 to 18 months.”

But what about the fact that renewable energy sources are intermittent — that is, solar does not produce electricity when the sun is not shining and batteries typically run for about four hours? And what about concerns of battery fires?

Hershman said “long-duration battery (systems) are coming” and technological advancements are leading to more fire-resistant battery chemistries.

“We’re going to have to make sure that we do it safely, first and foremost, and technology is going to be a big part of that,” he said. “But the reality is, we’re going to have to meet this load somehow.”

Before its IPO, SOLV Energy was a private company, created as a division of commercial construction company Swinerton in 2008. Since 2022, SOLV has been owned by American Securities, a private equities firm.

SOLV’s national workforce is made up of about 2,600 employees, with more than 150 based in the San Diego area.

The company’s ticker symbol is MWH, which is appropriate for an energy company since that’s an acronym for “megawatt hours.”