By Ray Huard/ San Diego Business Journal / August 26, 2025
As Point Loma Nazarene University looks toward its future, the university is working with Studio E Architects to map out a way to best accommodate the physical changes that come with a changing education program.
“Like all institutions of higher learning, they are evolving. They’ve been adding all kinds of programs and they’re transitioning programs,” said Eric Naslund, Studio E principal.
Jeff Bolster, vice president for university services, said that it’s been at least 20 years since the university took a strategic look at how the university might grow.
“We just felt like it was time for the professional kind of help of kind of looking into what are our strengths and opportunities are on the campus,” Bolster said.
Limited Footprint to Build On
The challenge is that the university’s 90-acre main campus on Point Loma has no extra land on which to expand.
“We can’t grow up or out. We have to grow within the footprint that we have,” Bolster said. “We certainly are planning for growth and looking for growth, but that kind of growth can’t happen on the Point Loma campus.”
Point Loma Nazarene also has the Mission Valley Regional Center, the Balboa Regional Center in Kearny Mesa, Liberty Station Conference Center and the Bakersfield Regional Center.
As described in the master plan, the Point Loma campus with more than 40 buildings is along a ridgeline on slopes overlooking Sunset Cliffs Natural Park with panoramic views of the Pacific Ocean.
Preserving those views was a key factor in developing a new master plan, according to Studio E.
“Part of what we wanted to demonstrate to them is, there are places on campus to do things,” Naslund said. “The biggest challenge, by far, was fitting things into the terrain, finding places to do what they needed to do.”
Additionally, Naslund said that the campus is in the coastal zone, which limits building heights to 30 feet, “so you have to be careful how you develop.”
“Given the spectacular views off that campus, because it tilts to the ocean, it’s sort of like being in bleachers with a view to the ocean,” Naslund said.
At this stage, Bolster said that the university is “in a season of strategic planning.”
“It would be less about building planning and construction planning,” Bolster said. “We’ve got to make sure all of the physical assets of the university are ready to support the growth and development.”
Student housing is one of the biggest challenges that the university faces, according to Bolster.
“They have housing, but they don’t have enough of it,” Naslund said. “The first step would be to put (new) housing on the north end of campus.”
Following that, Studio E suggested that existing student housing on the south end of campus be razed and replaced with new housing that could accommodate more students than the existing structures.
“They’re not getting very many beds for the amount of ground they have,” Naslund said.
Event Center Proposed
One recommendation that Studio E made in the master plan was to add a 25,000-square-foot fitness center on a parking lot adjacent to an existing gym, and to add an event center to the south of an existing Greek Amphitheater.
The architect also said that Salomon Theater could be rebuilt to include meeting spaces, classrooms, and student services such as a wellness center for physical and mental health services and lactation rooms.
The gym “is just completely impacted,” Naslund said. “They can’t do everything they need to do, so they need to get this fitness center in.
At this stage, the fitness center is just a concept, Bolster said.
“We’re in the process now of trying to figure out the best way to do it,” Bolster said, adding that an event center is also high on the university’s wish list.
Studio E also suggested that gathering places be added along a pedestrian mall at the center of the campus.
While the overall master plan takes a long view on the future of Point Loma Nazarene, one project already on the books is a $13 million remodel of Young Hall, a student housing building on the southwest corner of campus that was designed by famed San Diego architect Richard “Dick” Lareau, who died in 2022.
“We’re preserving the architecture of the building,” Bolster said, with no changes to the exterior, but the interior will be completely remodeled.
“That building hasn’t been renovated in the last 20 years,” Bolster said. “The bones of it are still good, so there will be no major additions or anything like that. It’s just modernization.”
The university is completing a $12 million remodel of two freshman dorms.
Bolster said that developing the master plan with Studio E was “the most positive experience I’ve had with an architectural firm.”
“They were engaging, they were creative, they were excellent listeners, and they have continued to work with us,” Bolster said. “They’re not a top-down architecture firm. They were not in any way dictating terms to us.”
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