We're Honored To Be The New Business Improvement District Advisory Board for the University Ave Corridor!

It’s Official!!! 

We are excited to announce that City Heights Community Development Corporation is the new Business Improvement District Advisory Board for the University Ave corridor in City Heights. We would like to first thank our City Heights Business owners for their continued support, and willingness to take on the business journey with us alongside them. We are so grateful and honored you allow us to be a part of your journey.  

Additional gratitude to organizations who support our businesses and our goal to create economic mobility in City Heights. We cannot do this on our own, and it does take a village. Lastly, we are so appreciative of the City Heights Business Association and the work you have done for the last 20 years in City Heights. City Heights will be forever grateful.

City Heights Community Development makes this announcement with such excitement and hope for our business community. Personally, I make this announcement with jubilance but also so much emotion for how much it means to come back to the community and corridor that I knew so well going up in City Heights. I can remember being 12 years old and walking over to a record shop on University Ave that sold single cassettes. Yes, cassettes. I bought my first single cassette at that record shop; it was Kriss Kross’ Jump. The purchasing of that single cassette started my short-lived music career. The record shop also had a studio that you could rent for 100.00. I saved enough money to get “studio time” Ill end my story with I was enthusiastic about being a freestyle rapper, but I could not rap and music was not my calling. What did transpire from that experience was a relationship with the business owners. I frequently patronized San Diego’s Finest donut shop across the street and helped my mom wash clothes at the laundry mat a few stores down the street from the "studio." All great memories of growing up in City Heights. 

We are excited to start this new chapter in our organization’s history. In the next few weeks, we will be making further announcements on the process. In the meantime, if you are a business owner in City Heights, and have ideas on what you’d like to see happen in your community, please feel free to contact us at economicdevelopment@cityheightscdc.org. We would love to hear from you. For those of you that would like to be involved in serving our businesses, please feel free to email us as well. Our business owners have seen some challenges not seen in many parts of San Diego. Yet, each one of them welcomes you in with all they have and with the biggest smile. They are deserving of the best quality of life and opportunity, and we intend to make that happen.  

Cheers to new beginnings! 

Alexis Villanueva
Interim Executive Director
City Heights Community Development