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Artistic rendering of coming changes to Campo Road (Courtesy County of San Diego)
By Karen Pearlman
June 7, 2025 (Casa de Oro) – The County of San Diego is moving into the next phase of the ambitious Campo Road Corridor Revitalization Specific Plan, aimed at transforming the Campo Road corridor into a safer, more walkable and vibrant community hub.
Backed by a multi-million-dollar grant awarded early this year, county personnel along with input from stakeholders continue to focus on detailed design and engineering for public infrastructure improvements including a more walkable environment, improved safety and connections for pedestrians, cyclists and drivers, said Audrey Hamilton, project manager with the County Department of Public Works, who led a June 4 Zoom meeting on the latest news for the area.
The coming work is expected to bring new life to portions of Campo Road and surrounding streets in the unincorporated area between Spring Valley and La Mesa.
There’s been more than a decade of discussion and years of tentative plans for revitalizing the main commercial strip and adjacent residential area along Campo Road in Casa de Oro.
As part of the Campo Road Specific Plan, approved in 2023 by the San Diego County Board of Supervisors -- and long championed by the Casa de Oro Alliance – the county earlier this year secured a $2.5 million grant through San Diego Association of Governments’ Housing Acceleration Program.
The SANDAG grant, which began in February and sunsets in April 2026, is funding preliminary engineering and design plans that support the community’s Specific Plan related to long-sought improvements along Campo Road.
The grant at its core will support housing by improving neighborhood walkability and safety. It is also supporting outreach and engagement, plus preliminary engineering and design of roundabouts, bicycle, pedestrian and roadway safety infrastructure.
Casa de Oro's Commercial Corridor
The community-based plan seeks to improve the urban form, quality of life and public safety along the Campo Road Commercial Corridor. The Specific Plan covers a 60-acre area (40 acres excluding roads and rights-of-way) centered on Campo Road between Rogers Road and Granada Avenue and serves as the commercial and civic center of the Casa de Oro community.
The area primarily encompasses the commercial area extending one block north and south of Campo Road, and is located within the Valle de Oro Community Plan Area, which includes the communities of Casa de Oro, Mount Helix and Rancho San Diego. Campo Road is a central hub for economic and civic activities, providing businesses, schools and other essential services for Casa de Oro and nearby communities like Lemon Grove, Spring Valley and La Mesa.
This past week, a virtual Zoom meeting held by the County’s Department of Public Works and the Planning & Development Services Department gave an overview of the project and outlined the way the grant funding would move along.
Hamilton said there will be three specific public outreach and engagement touchpoints at key design milestones with the preliminary engineering and design efforts and that the meetings will be announced two weeks prior to when they are scheduled.
The timeline specified by the grant will heavily direct the project. The project team plans to design the road improvements by next winter, with final plans to be completed at the end of the grant.
Any continued needs for the Specific Plan after the grant ends next April will have to be funded through future grants or via the county itself.
At the Zoom meeting, Hamilton noted that the county must take a few items into consideration as the team designs the various road improvements, such as location of existing utilities and the location of privately owned lands.
“The county will also take into consideration access points to privately owned lands such as driveways,” she said. “If the county and the community desire to design road improvements that move the way access points or extend onto privately owned lands there is an established process that brings all parties together to discuss those options. Those types of discussions do take time… with time frames that extend beyond that grant limit… therefore the county intends to continue the discussions of options beyond the grant schedule.”
The DPW and PDS agencies’ efforts are covering county-owned areas of Casa De Oro, including Campo Road, Conrad Drive, Bonita Street, Barcelona Street, Cordova Avenue and Granada Avenue.
The improvements will look to include widening sidewalks and bikeways with buffers, parking lanes, landscaped and mountable medians, street lighting, amended turn lanes, planting strips with trees, curb bulb-outs, three roundabouts and high-visibility crosswalks.
County officials also said they are aware of flood issues in the region and that the scope of the preliminary and design improvements will also include the review of flood control structures between Kenwood Drive and Granada Avenue.
More on the Campo Road Specific Plan
The Specific Plan’s vision is to "create welcoming and inclusive public spaces, add traffic calming measures and creating a safe environment," the county said.
The plan speaks to different strategies to get there, including new development standards, residential choices that meet demographic housing needs, infill development, community facilities, roadway reconfiguration, gateway elements, "art and expression" and infrastructure improvements that complement new development.
The plan also considers a Business Improvement District as a potential funding and management mechanism.
The Board of Supervisors officially adopted the Campo Road Corridor Revitalization Specific Plan in January 2023, but it had been on the minds of residents and community members for decades.
Back in September 2015, the Casa de Oro Community Alliance was formed by a coalition of residents, business owners, property owners, community planning groups, nearby schools, churches and other stakeholders, with the mission to enrich and beautify the Casa de Oro area.
Since 2017, the County has hosted dozens of public forums, community meetings and workshops to allow the community to share their ideas for the area and establish a long-term vision for its enhancement, and in July 2018, SANDAG awarded the county a Smart Growth Incentive Program grant funding to complete an initial two phases of the project.
The third phase kicked off in June 2020.
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