When Yehudi Gaffen surveys the bustling 1,500 acres that is Downtown San Diego, he sees more than a sea of cranes and fresh opportunities for his project management firm. He sees a template for what is to come.

“I personally feel urban infill is the future of Southern California,” says Gaffen, the principal of Gafcon Inc.

To get a jump on that trend, Gaffen moved the company to Downtown San Diego in 1992 from its former home in North County. “We’d been on Downtown projects since the early 90s,” he says. “The level of activity increased so much, especially residential development, and so we moved closer to our clients.”

Since then, the firm has represented owners in the development of numerous Centre City buildings. Among the high-profile projects it is overseeing now are Allegro Towers, a 28-story, 240,000-square-foot apartment/commercial building and the $54 million North Embarcadero Visionary Plan.

As a whole, Gafcon’s work is geographically dispersed, with a golf course in Oceanside, Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College expansion and upgrading Chula Vista Elementary School.

But Downtown is where the greatest challenges lie. “There are more constraints and more due diligence is required,” Gaffen says.

Examples are finding parking for workers and a staging place for materials a job will consume. Issues from precisely locating property lines to blocking neighbors’ views comes up when you’re building property line to property line.

Gaffen sees his firm’s ability to overcome those hurdles as a strength in leading future development.

“Sprawl is a thing of the past,” he says. “Developers now need to figure out how to shoehorn in new projects.” Meeting those needs means staying intricately involved in a project from start to finish and never forgetting who they are representing. “We call ourselves chameleons,” Gaffen says. “We have to take on the color of every (project) owner.”

Gafcon was founded in 1987 as a two-person operation. It has grown to include offices in Orange County, Los Angeles, Reno and Palm Desert and has managed more than 170 projects with a total construction value of more than $2 billion.

“This is just the beginning,” Gaffen says of Downtown. “The best is still to come.”

— Maria L. Kirkpatrick