With everything from new buildings and bridges to the arrival of the trolley, the shift in the campus’s physical appearance is profound. Yet, the impact will span far beyond just new construction—it will serve to enhance the student experience, enrich the campus community and spark research and innovation.
UC San Diego’s unprecedented expansion is designed to accommodate increasing student enrollment and create a more connected university. As more Tritons come to campus, UC San Diego is poised to become one of the nation’s premier residential campuses, offering dynamic spaces for students to learn, live and interact.
Opened: 2017 and 2020
Mesa Nueva Apartments, Nuevo West and Nuevo East provide below market housing to more than 3,500 graduate students, along with additional parking, amenities and access to almost every part of campus via the Nuevo West Pedestrian Bridge. The Mesa Neighborhood fosters community and helps the university reduce waitlists for graduate housing.
Opened: Fall 2020
The university’s first living and learning neighborhood, North Torrey Pines Living and Learning Neighborhood, is the new home of Sixth College and two new academic buildings, one for the School of Social Sciences and one for the School of Arts and Humanities. Blending cultural, residential and retail spaces among the classrooms, this neighborhood also includes the reimagined UC San Diego Craft Center.
Opened: Fall 2021
Located steps from the Central Campus trolley station on the UC San Diego Blue Line, the Design and Innovation Building includes four distinct spaces to incubate and accelerate groundbreaking ideas—The Basement, Makerspace, The Design Lab and the Entrepreneurship Center. All four provide opportunities for students to guide products through the full lifecycle of design, prototype creation, testing, fabrication and commercialization, bringing products to market and ideas to impact.
Expected Completion: Fall 2025
Ridge Walk North Living and Learning Neighborhood will accommodate 2,400 undergraduate students and support the university’s academic mission by providing updated administrative and teaching space for Thurgood Marshall College, the Department of Economics in the School of Social Sciences and the School of Global Policy and Strategy.
As UC San Diego continues to grow, the campus seeks to open itself up as a premier destination for the greater community, a welcoming place for patients and a vibrant center that supports students’ development and provides opportunities for academic, personal and professional success. A new Alumni and Welcome Center will also offer an exciting new space for alumni to return to, connect with and reengage with their alma mater.
Opened: Fall 2021
The 11-mile extension of the UC San Diego Blue Line trolley, one of the largest infrastructure projects in San Diego’s history, brought two stations to campus, connecting the university to the region like never before. The stations at the main campus and UC San Diego Health offer faculty, staff and students an additional safe, reliable and inexpensive alternative to driving, while helping to reduce roadway congestion and ease parking demands. The UC San Diego Blue Line also helps patients benefit from UC San Diego Health’s world-class patient care and wealth of top-ranked specialty health care.
Opened: Spring 2022
Located on a full city block at the intersection of Park Boulevard and Market Street in San Diego’s East Village neighborhood, and steps away from the UC San Diego Blue Line trolley connecting the UC San Diego campus with the U.S.-Mexico border, UC San Diego Park & Market is designed to serve the entire San Diego community as a social and intellectual hub for civic engagement, learning and collaboration. The flexibly designed space represents the university’s commitment to connecting with the cultural heritage and shared values of the region’s diverse social, cultural and economic community.
Opened: Fall 2022
Designed with entertainers of the highest caliber in mind, the Epstein Family Amphitheater is a showcase for performing arts. The 2,500 seat open-air, state-of-the-art performance venue steps from the UC San Diego Blue Line trolley features local and international talent, everything from large-scale rock concerts to classical quartets and theatrical dance. The new performance space is also an inspiring addition for the university's celebrated theater, dance, visual arts and music programs.
Expected completion: 2026
Triton Center will provide expanded student support services at the heart of the campus with the Student Health and Well-Being Building and Student Success Building. Triton Center will also include the Alumni and Welcome Center, serving as a home away from home for our alumni as well as an engaging campus gateway for students, faculty, staff and visitors alike. A multipurpose building with a 500-person event space and the Strauss Family Meta Gallery will provide a venue for celebration, connection and the arts.
Every day, UC San Diego is transforming lives and society through our multidisciplinary research. As part of UC San Diego’s current expansion, new space is being added for classrooms, research labs and areas for collaboration, all of which spark the legendary innovation and experimentation for which our campus is known.
Opened: Fall 2018
Located on the Revelle College campus, Tata Hall adds much-needed research space and teaching laboratories for the School of Biological Sciences and the School of Physical Sciences. This cutting-edge facility is helping to accommodate the growing demand for new undergraduate laboratory courses and is home to the Tata Institute for Genetics and Society and the Kavli Institute for Brain and Mind.
Opened: 2022
The Ted and Jean Scripps Marine Conservation and Techology Facility provides undergraduate and graduate coursework in marine biodiversity, conservation, resource management, advanced statistical analysis and associated disciplines. The facility houses the Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation (CMBC), and the basement is almost entirely devoted to a saltwater research aquarium with chilled, ambient and warm seawater pumped directly from the Pacific Ocean from the Scripps Pier seawater system.
Opened: Fall 2022
Named for the late UC San Diego alumnus and co-founder of Qualcomm, Franklin Antonio Hall is designed to facilitate interactions between Jacobs School of Engineering faculty and students, with nearly 200,000 square feet of new research spaces organized into “collaboratories” housing multiple teams, each led by a different professor. Together, these complementary research teams will pursue grand-challenge research in areas like renewable energy technologies, smart cities and smart transportation, wearable and robotics innovations, real-time data analysis and decision making, digital privacy and security, nanotechnology, and precision medicine.
