The 101 Ash Street File

How San Diego signed a $128M lease on an empty, asbestos-laced tower — and paid a secret $9.4M broker on both sides

The signature scandal of the Faulconer era and the most expensive single deal in the "permanent government" arc. In 2016 the City entered a 20-year, ~$128M lease-to-own for the former Sempra HQ at 101 Ash St — a building that turned out to be vacant and asbestos-contaminated, costing ~$18,000/day in rent. The intermediary was Cisterra Development; the broker who worked both sides was Jason Hughes of Hughes Marino, ostensibly Mayor Faulconer's UNPAID volunteer real-estate adviser, who secretly collected $9,433,872.30 from Cisterra on the 101 Ash + Civic Center Plaza deals. After litigation, the City settled with Cisterra for ~$132M in 2022 (over City Attorney Elliott's objection) and clawed back Hughes's full fee in 2023, when he pled guilty to a misdemeanor conflict of interest (Gov Code 1090). The same machinery — Southwest Strategies' Chris Wahl lobbying to settle, behested gifts to Faulconer's One San Diego charity from Cisterra and Sempra — recurs throughout the file.