Daily Business Report-Feb. 8, 2018

Rendering of the Deep Space Atomic Clock in the middle bay of the General Atomics Orbital Test Bed spacecraft. (Credit: NASA)

NASA to Test Atomic Clock for Deep Space

Navigation Aboard General Atomics Spacecraft

ExecutiveBiz

NASA plans to test the accuracy of its instrument that is designed to support deep space navigation aboard a General Atomics spacecraft.

In deep space, accurate timekeeping is vital to navigation, but not all spacecraft have precise timepieces aboard.

For 20 years, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena has been perfecting a clock. “It’s not a wristwatch; not something available in a store. It’s the Deep Space Atomic Clock (DSAC), an instrument being built for deep space exploration,” said Danny Baird of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.

The space agency said its Deep Space Atomic Clock will be launched later this year as a hosted payload on San Diego-based General Atomic’s Orbital Test Bed spacecraft as part of the U.S. Air Force’s Space Technology Program-2 mission.

Ground-based atomic clocks support the navigation of most space missions through a two-way tracking process, which limits the monitoring capacity of a ground station to only one spacecraft at a time.

Todd Ely, DSAC principal investigator at NASA, said DSAC will work to bring the navigation support of ground-based atomic clocks to space.

DSAC is designed to enable ground stations to track multiple satellites at once; help spacecraft focus on their missions; and boost the accuracy of tracking data.

The flight test is intended to validate whether DSAC can maintain a two nanosecond time accuracy over a day, with a goal to reach 0.3 nanosecond precision.

If proven, DSAC’s technologies could also improve the service of global positioning systems, NASA noted.

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Gafcon Master Plan Selected For

Shanghai’s Zizhu Purple Bay Project

Shanghai Waterfront Community Builds on Success of Plan for Seaport San Diego

San Diego construction company Gafcon Inc. has been selected to lead a visionary master planning and development process for the Zizhu Purple Bay residential community, a mega-project on an 800-acre waterfront site along the Huangpu River located 18 miles south of the Bund of Shanghai.

The community will enhance a growing urban center with yacht homes, condos, a nature and education center with an approximately 125,000-square-foot aquarium and botanical garden, a rowing club, and a community services district with a health clinic, senior housing, youth center and multiple schools.

Construction is underway on portions of the Purple Bay site with the Gafcon-led Phase 2 master plan beginning in March on the 800-acre InnoTown business, technology and university hub, with an active marina and a walkable downtown center.

The list of committed tenants includes University of Southern California, General Electric and Coca-Cola.

“This is a legacy project at a tremendous scale,” said Yehudi “Gaf” Gaffen, CEO of Gafcon. “We are essentially building a new city from the ground up. It already has attention from high-profile companies, universities and individuals.”

The Purple Bay project builds on the vision of the 70-acre Seaport San Diego, a reimagining of a popular, urban, waterfront development. The Seaport San Diego project is being led by Gaffen’s development company, Protea Waterfront Development, and includes members of the Purple Bay team, including AVRP Skyport, the project’s architect.

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January Home Sales Fall

While Prices Remain Stable

Resale home transactions in San Diego County fell significantly in January from December – not uncommon for the first month of a new year, according to housing statistics compiled through the Multiple Listing Service by the Greater San Diego Association of Realtors.

The rush to close on home sales by Dec. 31 may have factored into the drop of 25 percent in single-family home sales, and 20 percent for attached properties (condominiums and townhomes) last month. Compared to January of last year, sold listings were down 10 percent for single-family homes, and 2 percent for condos and townhomes.

The median price of resale single-family homes in January dipped 2 percent month over month, to $595,000, but that’s up 7 percent from a year ago. The median price for attached properties was $409,000, up slightly from December, and 9 percent higher than January of last year. Properties were closing escrow during January in an average of only 33 days.

“January is usually one of the slowest months of the year for home sales,” said SDAR President Steve Fraioli. “Still, we’re looking at a good number of pending sales and new listings coming onto the market, so we are optimistic as we head toward a busier spring home-hunting season.”

In January, the ZIP codes in San Diego County with the most single-family home sales were:

92027 (Escondido East) with 40

92057 (Oceanside North) with 37

92021 (El Cajon) with 33

92028 (Fallbrook) with 33

92056 (Oceanside East) with 33

The most expensive single-family property sold in San Diego County in January was a remodeled 1965 home on Ocean Boulevard in Coronado with 80 feet of beach frontage, 5,300 square feet, six bedrooms, five baths, and a sale price of $7.5 million.

Click here for detailed look at the numbers.

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St. Paul’s PACE Opens New Care Program in El Cajon

St. Paul’s Program of All-inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) opens its new El Cajon Center in early March, following a grand opening celebration on Friday, Feb. 23 from noon to 2 p.m. The new St. Paul’s PACE East Center is located at 1306 Broadway. The project broke ground in September with contractor Nielsen Construction California.
This is the third St. Paul’s PACE program location (others are Downtown on Elm Street and in Chula Vista).
St. Paul’s Senior Services opened the first St. Paul’s PACE program in San Diego in 2008. As a managed care health plan exclusively for seniors, St. Paul’s PACE is for seniors with chronic medical conditions who find it challenging to live at home independently.
St. Paul’s PACE is conducting a capital campaign to underwrite expenses associated with the start-up of the new PACE Center.

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Greenhaus Takes Gold and Silver

Marketing Awards at NAHB Gala

San Diego advertising agency Greenhaus was awarded four Gold and two Silver Awards by the National Association of Home Builders at the National Sales and Marketing Awards gala known as “The Nationals.” The awards were handed out during the 2018 International Builders’ Show in Orlando, Fla. last month and honored the year’s most outstanding work in residential real estate sales, marketing and design.

Greenhaus client Rancho Mission Viejo/The Village of Esencia in Mission Viejo was awarded gold in three categories: Best Overall Advertising Campaign; Best Digital Marketing Campaign; Best Social Media Campaign.

Greenhaus also won a Gold Award for Best Direct Mail Program for Kukui’ula, located in Kaua’i. Rancho Mission Viejo/Village of Esencia was also selected for two Silver Awards:  Best Print Campaign Series of Ads; Best Email Marketing/Web Banners/Rich Media Advertising.

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Students Partner with Public

Defender for Civic Change

Twenty-three downtown-area high school students hoping to make a difference through civic projects will now serve as the first San Diego County Public Defender Youth Council. They kicked off the effort on a recent weekend, meeting with program leaders and young attorney advisors to develop and prepare for those tasks.

“They are a team of civically engaged and socially conscious young people armed with the knowledge that their efforts can effect positive change in their schools and their community,” said Public Defender Randy Mize. “I am 100 percent behind promoting and supporting San Diego youth in this purposeful endeavor.”

The first of two projects the student council will tackle, will be voter pre-registration of youth, said Connie Howard, of the Public Defender’s Office. The students will go to their schools and organize a rally or event where they can pre-register 16- and 17-year-olds to vote immediately upon turning 18. Additionally, the students will also go out into the community and register adults to vote over two weekends in April, Howard said.

The program is part of the Public Defender’s commitment to safe communities, which includes creating an environment where youth are less likely to get in trouble while promoting authentic youth-adult partnerships. Howard said in creating the council, “we can make a long-term commitment to including the youth voice in selecting strategies that will respond directly to their goals, priorities and needs.”

The students applied for the positions and were selected from among 60 candidates after interviewing with the Public Defender’s Office staff. The Youth Council requires a serious commitment from the students. They have all agreed to the initial two-day training to outline the tasks, develop goals and organize into committees. The council will meet for two hours every other Sunday to manage the results for projects, and are expected to provide extra time for special projects.

— Yvette Urrea Moe, County Communications Office

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First U.S. Ski Resort to Operate on

100 Percent Renewable Energy

Climate Action

The famous Lake Tahoe resorts in California will be the first ski facilities in the U.S. to operate on 100 percent renewable energy, eliminating emissions which would be a threat to the industry’s future. The owner company Squaw Valley Alpine Meadows’ has partnered with the electric service provider Liberty Utilities to identify and develop new renewable energy generation, storage and efficiency projects to benefit the two Lake Tahoe resorts as well as the entire Olympic Valley area.

“Solar power has come down in cost so much that it’s accessible now,” said Andy Wirth, president and COO of Squaw Valley Alpine Meadows. “It’s a purely economic decision. And it’s also about how we operate sustainably long into the future. We’re glad to finally advance on this key, strategic level changeover to 100 percent renewable-sourced energy.”

Personnel Announcements

John Kellogg Promoted to New

Position at Saxco International

Saxco International, a provider of packaging solutions, announced the promotion of John Kellogg to the newly created role of chief sales and marketing officer. In this role he will lead a new sales and marketing organization that will have the primary responsibility for the company’s sales growth, marketing and branding.

Kellogg, 49, joined the company in 2014 through the acquisition of San Diego-based Square Peg Packaging where he served as president and co-founder since 2007. Since then, he has served as senior vice president at Saxco with primary responsibility for national packaging and beer category growth.

Kellogg received a marketing degree from San Diego State University. He has served on numerous advisory boards in both the for-profit and nonprofit segments. He regularly speaks at corporate events and has been featured in publications including Inc. Magazine and the Business Journal.

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University of San Diego Hoehn Galleries

Presents ‘Art Cash: Money in Print’

Exploring the complex and visually fascinating relationship between currency and fine arts prints is the focus of a new exhibition at the University of San Diego’s Robert and Karen Hoehn Family Galleries.

“Art Cash: Money in Print” features more than 40 original works by a wide variety of artists — including Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, John Baldessari, Hans Haacke, and Chris Burden — many of whom have never been shown before at USD.

“Art Cash mines the intersections between making art and currency across the late 20th and early 21st centuries,” said USD Director of University Galleries Derrick Cartwright. “As this exhibition demonstrates, paper money and original prints share many unique qualities, not the least of which are the ways in which they are produced, circulated and exchanged. They even share a history of counterfeiting.”  An illustrated, 32-page scholarly catalogue accompanies the exhibition.

The public is invited to a free lecture by the curator of Art Cash, Erin Sullivan Maynes today at 5:30 p.m. in USD’s French Parlor in Founders Hall. A reception will follow and no RSVP is necessary.

Maynes was formerly the Hoehn Curatorial Fellow for Prints at USD. She is now the assistant curator of the Robert Gore Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

This free exhibition will be on public view from Friday, Feb. 9 through Friday, May 18. Gallery hours are noon to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and noon to 6 p.m. on Thursday.

The project was supported by a generous grant from the International Fine Print Dealers Association in New York and also the University Galleries’ Print Society.

For more information go to www.sandiego.edu/galleries.