A work of craftsmanship and history has been in the making since 2011 at Spanish Landing, where a 16th century Spanish galleon is being re-created and may soon be ready to launch.

Demolition is expected to begin in September for a 117-unit apartment development with ground floor retail in the East Village.

Steve Black, Cisterra Development president and principal, said the 300,000-square-foot building being constructed for Sempra Energy (NYSE: SRE) in the East Village will be topped out by early fall. The building is being constructed on a 55,000-square-foot block bounded by J Street, Island Avenue, Seventh and Eighth streets.

In a move to expand its efforts in translational medicine, the University of California San Diego is building a new facility for its Clinical and Translational Research Institute.

San Diego’s hospitality industry continues to see growth in the heart of the city as a handful of new restaurants, bars and lounges are slated to open toward the end of the summer. Some of the most anticipated openings include Bottega Americano, Kettner Exchange, Swine Bar and a new restaurant helmed by a celebrity chef.

On the northern fringe of San Diego's Little Italy, a gaping hole occupies the site where once stood one of the city's most distinctive landmarks: an art deco restaurant complex swathed in hot-pink paint, outlined by long strips of blue-and-white neon, and topped with a concrete spire that was long emblazoned with the names "Fat City" and "China Camp" in glowing English and Chinese characters in red and gold.

The San Diego Unified School District is in the midst of an ambitious effort to renovate and, in some cases, rebuild all its 226 educational facilities. The $5 billion project is being funded through a pair of bond measures, Proposition S and Proposition Z, which were passed by voters in 2008 and 2012, respectively. San Diego Unified is the second largest school district in the state -- and one of the largest in the nation -- with 132,000 students and an annual operating budget of $1 billion.

Kaiser Permanente is adding to its San Diego portfolio with the new San Diego Central Hospital in Kearny Mesa.

Murals, tree sculptures and outdoor seating areas are being constructed to transform and update the 25-year-old Hillcrest Uptown District Shopping Center on University Avenue.

San Diego-based Sudberry Properties’ senior vice president Marco Sessa stood atop a newly paved cul-de-sac, taking in the expansive view below of what will be the $2 billion Mission Valley mixed-use project Civita. Some of the residential projects, like the Lucent condos and Circa 37 apartments, are complete and gleaming. Others, like apartment complexes Versa and West Park, rattle with construction noise. What will be a 19-acre community park is still a long wedge of dirt. Civita’s future business district is today occupied only by concrete manufacturing, a hint of the quarry operations that occupied this land for about 70 years.

The three-parcel, 15,000-square-foot property in Little Italy at 1810 State and 1819 Columbia streets has been sold for $5.3 million.

Construction defect litigation is down, multifamily construction activity is up, and material costs appear to be rising at an accelerated rate.

Annalena Thompson had a decision to make after completing her credit training program with a San Diego bank in the mid '90s: go into commercial lending or commercial real estate. She chose the latter and today is one of the few women in commercial real estate in San Diego.