Will a Horton Plaza office campus change the character of downtown?

Downtown San Diego doesn’t need retail. It needs en vogue office space — at least that’s the untested theory behind a radical reimagining of Horton Plaza as a corporate hub of the future.

Incoming owner Stockdale Capital Partners, according to community stakeholders familiar with the firm’s plans, wants to turn the 900,000-square-foot shopping center into the type of amenity-rich campus that would convince the nation’s elite technology companies to open up shop. And what’s left of the retail element would consist solely of trendy restaurants and boutique fitness studios.

It’s a bold vision that, if realized, not only changes the look of downtown’s core but, some experts say, changes its character, jumpstarting a broader downtown commercial development craze that would rival the residential one already underway.

“We have done extensive market research for downtown San Diego, and I believe that the office demand... is very strong,” said Gary London, a real estate economist. “But there’s no historical basis for my statement.”

In the past 20 years, downtown has added “net zero” office space against a commercial building frenzy happening around the county, he said. At the same time, high profile technology companies have been circling the city’s center and finding nowhere satisfactory to land.

Downtown San Diego plays host to around 10 million square feet of office space with 12 percent vacancy, according to real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield’s first-quarter report. And real estate experts agree that the kind of space required for a tech powerhouse — as in, hundreds of thousands of Class A square footage with the type of collaborative environment made popular by WeWork — just doesn’t exist downtown.

That means anything beyond a miniature outpost for Facebook, Google, Amazon and other industry whales is totally out of the question.

But space may not be the only issue.

One major tech company, recounted Jason Hughes, chairman and chief executive of commercial leasing firm Hughes Marino, was contemplating moving its headquarters down here.

“He came down and was really disappointed with our options,” Hughes said of the company’s CEO. “You have multi-billionaires with endless amounts of wealth and they come down here … and say, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me. San Diego is small town USA.’”

What’s missing, exactly? The right kind of real-estate and top tech talent, Hughes said.

And he isn’t overly optimistic that a corporate conversion of Horton Plaza will do much of anything to change the perception of technology’s crème de la crème — unless the developer plans to fork over at least $1 billion.

“If (Stockdale) thinks they’re going to repurpose what’s there, I can’t imagine it working,” he said.

The rosier point of view, offered by JLL Executive Vice President Richard Gonor, is that engineering a millennial-friendly live-work-play center in the heart of downtown can and will successfully recruit forward-thinking firms, as in those that emphasize culture when competing for talent.

“A lot of technology companies are looking to the workplace as a recruiting tool, and everybody is looking for ways to enhance their employees experience,” Gonor said. “Providing a space that has that kind of access to retail on site is something that will do very, very well.”

London, the real estate economist, is also of the mindset that downtown is ripe for a corporate renaissance, with the Horton redo and the $1.5-billion Manchester Pacific Gateway development leading the way.

“All these people are betting that the past is not the prologue; that we’re going to experience a major employment surge,” he said.

And the bets are as risky as they get — particularly with the Stockdale venture. The developer is dismantling an iconic San Diego landmark in the name of landing the elusive technology unicorn that may not ever appear.

jennifer.vangrove@sduniontribune.com (619) 293-1840 Twitter: @jbruin