East Village, San Diego Ranked #20 Top Apartment Neighborhoods

Updated: May 4, 2022

Rent Café, a nationwide housing rental platform, on November 2, 2021 ranks San Diego’s East Village #20 top apartment neighborhoods in America.

A great honor for the City of San Diego and its popular East Village neighborhood.

What Criteria was Used for Top Apartment Neighborhoods in America?

This report looked at the nation’s 50 largest cities to see which neighborhoods realized the biggest increase in apartments between 2017 and 2021.

The criteria included:

Neighborhoods with the highest uptick in new apartments where renters claimed they wanted to live created the basis for the report;
The report focused on “centrally located hyper-urban areas highly sought by Gen Z and millennial renters.”;
This report claims that the collected data over the past 10 years show renters returning to downtown areas more than ever; and
These neighborhoods reflect the most popular urban locations with vibrant amenities in the country. In the past five years, around 1.6 million new rentals popped up across the nation.

The methodology analyzed new apartments construction data amongst the 50 largest cities from the U.S. Census Bureau. Only buildings containing at least 50 units built between 2017 and 2021 were included.

Smaller neighborhoods with less than 500 units or less than three buildings built during the past five years were excluded.

Criteria was Used for Top Apartment Neighborhoods in America

20. East Village, San Diego, CA

New Apartments: 2,699

New apartment share of San Diego’s total supply in past five years = 22%

The Top 6 Apartment Crazed Neighborhoods in San Diego

Besides East Village, five other San Diego neighborhoods also experienced an increase in new apartments.

The Yardi Matrix site, a real estate industry asset management and business development tool, provided more data for this report.

Click on the links below to learn more about the other five neighborhoods:

San Diego’s East Village History and Location

East Village is the largest downtown urban neighborhood in San Diego. Located southeast of Cortez Hill and the Core district and east of the Gaslamp Quarter.

East Village takes up 130 blocks between Seventh Avenue east to 18th Street. More than 700 businesses are located here.

After 2005, housing in East Village took off. Before then, it was primarily an artist’s community sprung from its original vacant lots and abandoned warehouses.

What East Village Offers

East Village landmarks include:

Petco Park, home of the San Diego Padres MLB team;
The San Diego Central Library, a $185 million project, officially opened in 2013; and
Harbor Drive Pedestrian Bridge connects the San Diego Convention Center with Petco Park.

Nearby luxury hotels include four major ones:

Andaz Hyatt San Diego, with 159 luxury rooms and a rooftop bar, wine bar, upscale restaurant, and underground nightclub;
Bayfront Hilton, a 30-story, 1,190 room bay view hotel next to the San Diego Convention Center with stunning panoramic views of the bay;
Omni San Diego Hotel with a pedestrian skywalk connected to Petco Park with 512 luxury rooms many offering stadium views; and
Solamar Hotel offers a Kimpton lifestyle with 235 rooms serving as a “gateway” to the historic Gaslamp Quarter from the East Village.

Learn about East Village’s activities, events, restaurants, and shopping by vising their official community association website.

To sum it up, East Village offers a livable urban village culture transformed from an arts and industrial neighborhood into a mixed-use area. Residents enjoy the arts, entertainment, culture, and adult education. Its vibe is hip urban with old warehouses converted into residential units. Most residents are apartments.

Reasons to Live in East Village, San Diego

What East Village Offers, history, hotels

1. It's Growing

Current and anticipated growth in the East Village includes a 613 units complex with three buildings, a 400-foot tower surrounded by seven-story and six-story buildings. Located at the corner of Broadway and Park Boulevard with plenty of green space for the public to enjoy.

The San Diego Business Journal on August 26, 2021, published a news story titled: “East Village Becoming The Downtown of the Future”. Despite the pandemic, developers are planning future housing projects in San Diego’s East Village. For example, the Cisterra Development’s $145 million 22-story called the Radian at 659 Ninth Ave. featuring a 36,000 square-foot Target store and 241 apartments.

The Times of San Diego reported in July 2021 that the Radian project is scheduled for completion in 2023 with its 255,000 square-foot high rise tower. Radian’s apartments will range from studios to three-bedroom units with penthouse units on the top two floors.

CoStar, a large real estate research firm, claims “The market is red hot on the apartment side” in East Village, Over the next year, CoStar expects East Village projects to create 2,100 apartments to market. East Village apartment rents went up 8.5% over the last year with a low 7% vacancy rate.

The Journal also reported that Xpera Group, construction consultants, claims “Big stuff happening in East Village right now”.

2. Lots of Live Entertainment

Lovers of live music venues will enjoy East Village. These include:

SoCal Music Festival offers four stages with live bands playing a variety of music tastes;
Moonshine Flats, featuring country music in its bar located at 344 7th Avenue. Also offers a backyard restaurant and bar; and
Saville Theater, famous for its jazz concerts.

3. Proximity to the Gaslamp Quarter

Just a half-mile from the famous Gaslamp Quarter. Only a six-minute drive (10 minutes with heavy traffic). A local and tourists’ hotspot with lots of entertainment and nightlife venues. Its 19th-century architecture reflects the former home of the legendary Wyatt Earp.

4. Lots of Educational Institutions

East Village boasts two highly ranked early & middle schools and two high schools.

Plenty of adult education with:

San Diego City College;
Thomas Jefferson School of Law;
NewSchool of Architecture and Design, a private college;
Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising (FIDM) another private college; and
The Central Library features several floors of learning centers, an innovation (idea) lab, a rare books room, and the Sullivan Family Baseball Research Center. Located at 330 Park Blvd.

Learn About Multifamily Housing Investments

WeLease Property Management Company publishes informative blog posts about multi-family rental investments. Examples include:

Contact WeLease if you have any questions about investing in San Diego County housing or need professional property management services.