Lifetime Achievement Award

Howard Greenberg was an established accountant when he moved from Chicago to San Diego in the early 1980s and began investing in real estate. In 1985, he bought a historic six-story brick warehouse downtown. It stretched along an entire city block yet contained only one active business. With its upper floors empty, the warehouse’s potential for rebirth was obvious—yet others overlooked the possibilities at the time. Our preservation hero restored and renovated the 1918 building through skillful adaptive-reuse and named it Pioneer Warehouse Lofts. It began humming with artists and others renting newly created live/work lofts. They relished the vintage architectural elements, spacious open floor plans, and durable concrete floors. Scores of San Diegans have called this place home, and so does our winner, who keeps his office there.

After this initial success, he formed Trilogy Real Estate Management with two other preservationist investors, Bud Fisher and Chris Mortensen, both PIP Award winners who are now deceased. “I was only a kid, 25 or 26 years old,” he recalls. “I am the link between the old and new [generations].” The savvy trio developed a score card for adaptive reuse possibilities for historic buildings. In fact, they literally wrote the city ordinance that allowed live/work units, which were popular immediately and paved the way for downtown’s residential renaissance.

Remarkably, Trilogy went on to buy and manage at least 18 historic buildings, restoring and renovating them for reuse as housing, hotels, and restaurants. Most are well-known, downtown success stories and listed historic landmarks. Church Lofts retains original features like heavenly high ceilings and a baptismal font; and the brick Simon Levi Building on J Street houses live/work spaces and offices steps away from Petco Park. The locally designated McClintock Warehouse near Little Italy is also on the National Register of Historic Places. Two more restored projects grace North Park—the 1929 North Park Theatre, and the Lafayette Hotel.

In historic building after building, our winner proved that adaptive reuse is an economic driver and a viable solution to San Diego’s housing shortage, but also rewarding for investors and, significantly, an overall asset to the city’s cultural vibrancy. Without his prescient determination to revive these worthy old buildings, downtown San Diego would have lost many of its historic touchstones and much of its character and identity.

For four decades, SOHO has watched this exemplary steward of San Diego’s architectural, commercial, and cultural history with awe and respect as one of the single largest contributors to saving San Diego’s historic places.

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Backesto Building, 1884

Simon Levi Company Building, 1913

Julian Produce Co. Warehouse Building, 1912. All photos by Sandé Lollis

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