Place to Call Home in Downtown : Lifestyles: Fir Lofts in Little Italy has put home ownership in the hands of many, with well-designed, low-cost units.

Home ownership downtown has eluded those who can only afford to rent small apartments for $500 to $700 a month. But with his Fir Lofts in Little Italy just north of downtown, architect/developer Jonathan Segal makes owning an option for many, while proving that low cost doesn’t have to mean low quality.

Fir Lofts is not a true “loft” project in the tradition of artists converting raw warehouse space, but it captures some of that spirit. Most interiors include open, two-story central living spaces with kitchens that merge into living and dining rooms, with loft bedrooms above. Tall banks of windows bring in daylight and assorted urban and waterfront views.

This is Segal’s second downtown residential project since he left a medium-sized San Diego architectural firm almost four years ago to design and develop his own projects.

His first development, 7 On Kettner, created seven townhomes on a wedge-shaped scrap of land next to the downtown trolley tracks, carrying price tags of $290,000 to $500,000.

It sold quickly, and with these two projects, Segal has carved out a niche as an architect who designs quality small residential projects as alternatives to larger buildings typical of redevelopment, and develops them himself.

While it is a big plus to have affordable, well-designed new homes downtown, Fir Lofts could have made an even greater contribution to revitalizing its neighborhood with a ground-floor espresso bar, gallery, cafe or other non-residential use. Instead, the street level has living units, which Segal’s partners figured was a safer investment.

By comparison, La Pensione, an SRO designed by San Diego architect Rob Quigley that opened last year at the corner of India Street and West Date Street, has a Mexican restaurant and an Italian cafe with sidewalk tables, making it a busy, colorful attraction.

While La Pensione’s architecture is an intriguing mix of contemporary and Mediterranean revival, its room rates make Segal’s project look especially good.

Single rooms with small bathrooms, microwaves and compact refrigerators at La Pension rent for $500 to $800 a month, about what it costs to make loan payments on the least expensive units at Fir Lofts.

Segal shoehorned 17 units into his $2.1-million, four- and five-story building. Marketing only by word-of-mouth, Segal, a natural talker, has already placed 11 homes in escrow, at prices from $89,000 to $169,000.

He has closely examined urban housing in New York, Chicago and San Francisco, and adapted ideas to San Diego, where a warmer, drier climate allows more windows and stucco construction holds up well.

One of his most difficult tasks at Fir Lofts was fitting 17 units into a building on a 5,000-square-foot lot, about the same size as lots under a typical San Diego tract home.

Density at Fir Lofts is about 135 units per acre, a sardine-like concentration, yet interiors get surprising amounts of daylight from abundant windows and a central courtyard, and the the homes feel roomier than their 700 to 1,050 square feet due to the open interiors and abundant daylighting.

Segal used simple, well-proportioned forms to give Fir Lofts a dignified appearance.

Window bays pop out to add visual variety and to catch views, with balconies in between. Operable vinyl windows are large and arranged in rhythmic patterns that add quiet order.

These are hardly luxury units, but small touches make a big difference. Artsy strips of twisted, perforated steel camouflage inexpensive exterior lights. Kitchens have wood cabinets and granite-like laminate counters, and spiral stairs with natural oak treads rise from living rooms to lofts.

Twenty-three parking slots are underground, and the auto entrance is tucked on the southwest corner, well out of the way of pedestrians.

“We looked at a number of places downtown,” said Mike Kyle, who plans to move with a roommate into a two-bedroom-with-loft unit at Fir Lofts next month. “We’re pretty much urban types, and the idea of living in the suburbs didn’t appeal to either one of us.”

Kyle likes the Little Italy neighborhood, one of the few places in San Diego where restaurants and other small businesses are within walking distance. And he likes the idea of catching a trolley or bus a few blocks away that can carry him downtown, to the South Bay or to East County.

A look at other downtown projects turned up nothing of comparable value, Kyle added. At Park Row condominiums, an early 1980s redevelopment project, one-bedroom-with-loft resale homes go for about $182,000, Kyle said, whereas his $169,000 unit at Fir Lofts has two bedrooms and a loft.

“There’s nothing else down there for that price,” said Patrick Duffy of Market Profiles, which analyzes new housing in San Diego. “Columbia Place was the last affordable product I can remember going in. Everything else has been higher end.”

Priced from around $100,000 to $180,000, homes at Columbia Place condominiums at Columbia and Market Streets downtown sold quickly when they hit the market in 1988.

But they were conventional townhomes, without the double-height spaces and huge window walls of Fir Lofts.

While buyers are responding well to Fir Lofts, the project has minor flaws besides its lack of street-level business.

Its two entries should be larger and more dramatic, and, in the name of good urban planning, it would be even better if street-level homes each had their own sidewalk entries. But Segal says more or larger entries would have usurped essential living space from units.

Also, some of the rooms at Fir Lofts don’t get as much natural light and views as others, due to blank, fireproof walls required along property lines for fire safety.

By summer, Segal hopes to start construction on 18 more low-priced lofts at Second and Island Avenues downtown, and every indication from Fir Lofts is that he is serving a hungry market with his smaller, well-designed and reasonably priced projects.