Leucadia's Highway Work Has Moved From Underground to the Shop Doors

In February, Jeff Schade hung a six-foot sign over a piece of construction equipment parked outside Leucadia Cyclery. As a joke, he left it there. He told The Coast News that the tractor "did not start its engine for three weeks and sat in front of Avocado Street with no movement."

Seven months later, the work outside his door looks different. The City of Encinitas updated its project page on September 17. It says crews have installed all of the 60-inch, 66-inch and 36-inch storm drainpipe between Jupiter Street and La Costa Avenue. The deep, slow part of the Leucadia Streetscape is done. The work left is curb, sidewalk, trees and light. That means this late fall, construction sits closer to the storefronts than at any point since it started.

The pipe is in, and the remaining work sits at the curb

Segment C West and the North Coast Highway 101 drainage project together cover Jupiter Street to La Costa Avenue. Construction started in March 2024. The city now expects completion in "late Fall 2026." The date has moved more than once. The segment was first scheduled to finish by summer 2025. On June 12, 2024, the City Council added the larger drainage scope and moved the target to summer 2026. In late July, Director of Engineering Dan Nutter told The Coast News the city expected to finish by October. The September update says late fall.

City staff gave the City Council a project update on August 26. Their presentation listed what was already in place. Asphalt paving and striping from Jupiter to La Costa were installed, and partial roundabouts were counted as completed work. The list of remaining items is the part a resident will actually see change:

1. Roundabouts, still to be finished. The presentation lists them at Jupiter and Grandview, and the project page names Jupiter Street and Moorgate Road.
2. 116 new trees, with irrigation and mulch.
3. 45 new streetlights.
4. Final paving, signs and striping.
5. A crosswalk and pedestrian signal at Avocado Street, listed in the project scope. No source has reported it operating yet.

The same September update describes active work on the west side of the highway: new curb, gutter, sidewalk, driveways and a bus shelter pad. The city says to expect intermittent lane shifts, noise, dust, work lighting and large vehicles. Access to driveways and businesses will be maintained. In July, Nutter put it plainly. Sidewalk and road work would be "up close and personal" with businesses over the following months.

Neither the September update nor the August presentation gives a ribbon-cutting date.

Why the final items match what the shop owners asked for

The Streetscape broke ground in January 2021. The whole corridor project is budgeted at more than $65 million, and Segment C alone carries an estimated $32 million. Kevin Doyle is treasurer of the Leucadia 101 MainStreet Association and a former Planning Commission member. He noted the project was first proposed in 2008.

The Coast News reported on July 31 that Stacy Reddell, the association's executive director, had surveyed 20 businesses on the corridor. Over the prior year, their sales were down an average of 25% to 40%. The same article named the owners behind those numbers:

• Leucadia Donut Shoppe. Owner Tom Chu said many northbound customers had to keep driving to La Costa Avenue to make a U-turn. His summer sales were down from previous years.
• The Leucadian Bar. Co-owner David Shapiro said losing street parking had discouraged customers from booking events.
• Sip-N-Sea. Owner Giuseppe Georgees runs a walk-up window. He described a customer and the customer's dog nearly being struck in front of his shop. The city has since put temporary barricades there.
• Surfhouse Hotel and Coffee Coffee. Co-owner Nikolas Harth said he supports the drainage work. His hotel has taken 8 to 10 inches of water in a ground-floor room during past storms.

Set those complaints against the list of remaining work and they line up closely. Schade added LED lights along his storefront's eaves because, he said, the stretch between The Leucadian Bar and Avocado Street was "pitch black" at night. The project still has 45 streetlights to install. Owners pointed to the lack of safe crossings. A signalized crossing at Avocado is in the scope, and Nutter said the city planned more signage to point pedestrians to designated crossings and show drivers where U-turns are allowed. Harth's flooded room is exactly the problem the drainage pipe was built to address. Nutter has said the project is only about a month behind schedule, which he called "pretty darn good" for a job this size.

So the things these shops have gone without are the things arriving last. Until they arrive, the shops are running at a disadvantage. Leucadia 101 MainStreet has kept promoting the corridor anyway. Its feed featured Leucadia coffee shops on September 27 and local food on September 9.

The Sunday market has already completed its move

Leucadia already went through one relocation this year, and it shows how these transitions tend to go. The Leucadia Farmers Market ran at Paul Ecke Central Elementary for 20 years. It held its last market there on June 7, because of planned construction at the school. The permits for the new site were appealed over vendor vehicles on the school's upper grass field and track. The market skipped a weekend while the appeal was pending. The City Council rejected the appeal unanimously on June 17, and the market reopened at Oak Crest on June 21.

The agreement came with conditions. Organizers kept a 200-foot buffer from the school's southern property line and cut the proposed maximum from 195 vendors to about 135. Reddell described the first weekend this way:

"The market went very, very well and that's an amazing, perfect location for it. The new location was everything we were hoping for."

She credited the nearby Encinitas Community and Senior Center parking lot for keeping traffic and parking manageable. The market runs every Sunday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Oak Crest Middle School, 675 Balour Drive. The operator has said it is unclear whether the market will return to Paul Ecke Central after the rebuild. The school district's October 2 update said the city and district still had unresolved project issues and planned to meet again on October 8. For now, Oak Crest is the market's home.

Grandview: repaired in May, closed in September

The beach end of Leucadia had its own reversal. The Grandview Beach stairway got structural repairs from February 3 to May 22 on a $960,637 budget. The City Council formally accepted the completed project on August 12. Five weeks later, on Friday, September 18, the city closed Grandview access after a bluff failure. It warned of possible further failures within 300 feet north and south of the staircase.

As the North Coast Current reported, the city's announcement didn't say whether the new repairs were affected, and it gave no reopening timetable. City officials said crews are "actively working to address the situation" and asked people to follow posted signs. Farther south, the D Street stairs in downtown Encinitas reopened January 21 after emergency structural rehabilitation. Until Grandview reopens, plan on another access point.

The weeks ahead, set against the construction calendar

The city expects the Leucadia work to finish in late fall, and that window overlaps with most of Encinitas's fall events. Today, October 3, the city marks its 40th anniversary with free activities at Moonlight Beach, Pacific View Arts Center, the Cardiff Farmers Market and the Historical Society's 1883 Schoolhouse.

The city's general events index lists a Día de los Muertos event on November 1 at the Encinitas Library, separate from the dedicated festival page. Check which listing is current before you go.

Every event in that table takes place south of Leucadia. Leucadia 101 MainStreet's own calendar lists only the weekly market right now. On the north stretch of Highway 101, between the Oak Crest market on Sunday and whatever comes next, the open shops are the calendar. As of The Coast News's late-July reporting, Leucadia Cyclery, The Leucadian Bar, Leucadia Donut Shoppe, Sip-N-Sea and Coffee Coffee were all operating along the construction zone.

Quinlan Gaughan follows how infrastructure projects like the Leucadia Streetscape change daily life along the coast: the new crossings, the new lighting, and how easy a business is to reach once the barricades come down. If you'd like a straight read on what the finished corridor means for your part of north Encinitas, Quin Gaughan | San Diego REALTOR is glad to talk it through. Let's Connect.