William Jones: Builder with a Mission

t an early age, William D. Jones (MBA '89) learned about the fragility of a stable urban community. From their home in the Skyline Hills section of San Diego, he and his family watched their neighborhood gradually decline as businesses left for the suburbs, property values dropped, schools deteriorated, and crime increased. "I remember feeling that my parents and neighbors were victims of forces beyond their control," Jones says.

Later, while earning a degree at the University of San Diego, Jones, at age 23, became chief of staff to a San Diego city councilor and steeped himself in public policy and urban redevelopment issues. When his boss moved on to another post, Jones filled the vacancy on the council and was subsequently elected to a four-year term.

As a councilor, Jones enjoyed "getting streets paved, libraries built, and accomplishing things with tangible public benefits." He eventually decided, however, that he wanted to expand his skills and broaden his perspective, so he set out for HBS. Jones, who was a full-time single father, was accompanied by his then eight-year-old daughter, Lia. "It was hard to balance my time between Lia, my courses, and my classmates," Jones recalls. Nevertheless, he says, during that period "my daughter and I were very close. She loved the environment. It was one of the best things we could have done."

After graduating from HBS, Jones worked at Prudential in San Francisco as an investment manager and subsequently as director of a $400 million real-estate portfolio. In 1993, he moved back to San Diego. There he formed CityLink Investment Corporation, a for-profit venture designed to carry out creative redevelopment projects. An interesting opportunity soon arose with the closing of a large supermarket in the City Heights section. "It was very bizarre," Jones says. "A neighborhood of 150,000 people suddenly didn't have a proper place to buy food."

Jones learned that the city was eyeing the supermarket location for a police station and that a new elementary school was to be built three blocks away. He persuaded the city council to incorporate all these needs into "an urban village," which would also include a library, a Head Start facility, a swimming and tennis center, a performing arts annex, and a community services center. "All of a sudden the whole thing had mushroomed into a $65 million master plan," Jones says with a smile.

Creatively using a combination of city and federal grants, HUD loans, private investments, and donations - and plenty of his own blood, sweat, and tears - Jones has slowly seen his dream, called the Urban Village, become a reality. A 110,000-square-foot shopping center with a national-chain supermarket is scheduled for completion in December 2000, with the entire complex of housing, businesses, and recreation and service buildings now about 70 percent finished.

Jones anticipates that he and others will identify additional investment opportunities to expand the project. He always believed that if CityLink did a good job creating public amenities, then the existing housing in the area - much of it dilapidated or overly dense for the local infrastructure - would become more desirable. He has seen that phenomenon occur at the Urban Village. People are moving back to the area, properties are being rehabilitated both privately and through nonprofit programs, and residents volunteer their labor to help with face-lifts. A commercial developer has recently proposed an office complex and a plan for 135 affordable town homes backed by tax credits.

Explaining his motivation, Jones says that "wanting to make a positive difference drives me more than anything else." Observes one San Diego city official, "William Jones has the brains of a banker and the heart of a missionary."

- Thomas Frick