University Heights
Normal Heights

About the Community of University Heights

University Heights, one of San Diego’s oldest and most historic mid-city urban communities bustling with history of the once popular Streetcar Trolley, architecture, the arts, and a plethora of great laid-back eateries, is only 5 miles from downtown. Once featuring the Mission Cliff Gardens and the Harvey Bentley Ostrich Farm near its northern edge (now present day Trolley Barn Park), this delightful residential community has a personality of its own mixed with Craftsman bungalows and multi- family properties.

About the Community of Normal Heights

Centrally located on a mesa just south of Mission Hills, the predecessor to San Diego State University, Normal School, a teachers college, was founded in 1899. The Normal Heights community was official founded several years later in 1906 when D.C. Collier and George M. Hawley filed a subdivision map with the county. It became one of San Diego’s first “Streetcar Suburbs” with the development of an electric trolley route along Adams Avenue that was part of the San Diego Electric Railway system and home of the Adams Avenue Operating Division which was established in 1915. Just like most urban mesa neighborhoods, Normal Heights is largely pedestrian friendly, has numerous Antique Shops and a landmark neon sign that identifies it, as well as its bounty of turn of the century Spanish style, and Craftsman homes.