Sorrento Valley is a neighborhood of

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. It is located about 17 mi (27 km) north of

Downtown San Diego Downtown San Diego is the city center of San Diego, California, the eighth largest city in the United States. In 2010, the Centre City area had a population of more than 28,000. Downtown San Diego serves as the cultural and financial center and ...

and its main airport,

Lindbergh Field San Diego International Airport , formerly known as Lindbergh Field, is an international airport northwest of Downtown San Diego, California, United States. It is owned and operated by the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority.. US Federa ...

. It is roughly bounded by Interstate 5 and Interstate 805, Camino Santa Fe to the east, the Los Peñasquitos Canyon Preserve to the north and Miramar Road to the south, as shown on the San Diego Police Department's neighborhood map. It encompasses Sorrento Mesa and is part of the

San Diego Unified School District San Diego Unified School District (formerly known as San Diego City Schools) is the school district based in San Diego, California, United States. It was founded in 1854. As of 2005 it represents over 200 institutions and has over 15,800 employee ...

While originally envisioned and zoned for industrial use, Sorrento Valley is now home to over 5,000 residents spread across three major single family home and condominium developments. Sorrento Valley is known as a center for high tech, biotech and scientific research, aided by its close proximity to the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...

. It is part of the city's

Mira Mesa Mira Mesa (Spanish language, Spanish for "Mesa, Table View") is a community and neighborhood in the city of San Diego, California. The city-recognized Mira Mesa Community Plan Area is roughly bounded by Interstate 15 on the east, Interstate 805 o ...

, Torrey Pines, and

University A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...

community planning areas.

History

Kumeyaay Village of Ystagua

Before European contact, Sorrento Valley was home to a

Kumeyaay The Kumeyaay, also known as Tipai-Ipai or by their historical Spanish name Diegueño, is a tribe of Indigenous peoples of the Americas who live at the northern border of Baja California in Mexico and the southern border of California in the Unit ...

village then known as Ystagua (pronounced "istawa") meaning 'worm's (larvae) house' in the

Kumeyaay language Kumeyaay (Kumiai), also known as Central Diegueño, Kamia, and Campo, is the Native American language spoken by the Kumeyaay people of southern San Diego County, California, San Diego and Imperial County, California, Imperial counties in Californ ...

. The village had been continuously occupied from as early as 1800 BCE, and had a peak population of 200 residents around the year 1700. The village of Ystagua was a major manufacturing, food processing, and trade center in the region, with ample access to shellfish, fish,

game A game is a structured form of play (activity), play, usually undertaken for enjoyment, entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an educational tool. Many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator s ...

, and wild grasses. The village was arranged with tool manufacturing land use east of what is now Sorrento Valley Road and residential use west of the road around Roselle St.

Gaspar de Portolá Gaspar de Portolá y Rovira (January 1, 1716 – October 10, 1786) was a Spanish military officer, best known for leading the Portolá expedition into California and for serving as the first List of governors of California before 1850, Governor ...

's expedition visited the valley in 1769 and found it to have a high capacity of agriculture. The village of Ystagua to be a trade hub. The area would be later be referred as Ranchería de la Nuestra Señora de la Soledad to the Spanish missionaries. The population of Ystagua had dropped to about 100 residents by 1800 after the spread of European diseases plagued the area.

Neighborhood of Sorrento Valley

In the 1880s, the

California Southern Railroad The California Southern Railroad was a subsidiary railroad of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway (Santa Fe) in Southern California. It was organized July 10, 1880, and chartered on October 23, 1880, to build a rail connection between wh ...

was constructed through the valley to connect National City and

San Bernardino San Bernardino (; Spanish language, Spanish for Bernardino of Siena, "Saint Bernardino") is a city and county seat of San Bernardino County, California, United States. Located in the Inland Empire region of Southern California, the city had a ...

with Chinese laborers who previously worked on the Central Pacific Railroad in the 1860s. During the 1912

San Diego free speech fight The San Diego free speech fight in San Diego, California, in 1912 was one of the most famous "free speech fights", class conflicts over the free speech rights of labor unions. Introduction By the beginning of the 20th century, growing confronta ...

, vigilantes aligned with police brought arrested members of the

Industrial Workers of the World The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), members of which are commonly termed "Wobblies", is an international labor union that was founded in Chicago in 1905. The origin of the nickname "Wobblies" is uncertain. IWW ideology combines genera ...

from the free speech protest in downtown San Diego to Sorrento valley. Vigilantes subjected these protesters to patriot indoctrination and forced them to kneel in front of the flag and sing the "Star Spangled Banner" in-key, which left an unknown number of IWW members dead or injured. Those that survived the ordeal were forcibly exiled from the City of San Diego under the threat of death. The construction of the

I-5 Interstate 5 (I-5) is the main north–south Interstate Highway on the West Coast of the United States, running largely parallel to the Pacific coast of the contiguous U.S. from Mexico to Canada. It travels through the states of Californi ...

in the 1960s and 1970s brought industrial and office development into the area, which helped foster a prominent biotech and IT industry.

Economy

Sorrento Valley is home to many high tech, biotech, and IT companies. Notable companies in the neighborhood include

Qualcomm Qualcomm () is an American multinational corporation headquartered in San Diego, California, and incorporated in Delaware. It creates semiconductors, software, and services related to wireless technology. It owns patents critical to the 5G, 4 ...

Pfizer Pharmaceuticals Pfizer Inc. ( ) is an American multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology corporation headquartered on 42nd Street in Manhattan, New York City. The company was established in 1849 in New York by two German entrepreneurs, Charles Pfizer ...

Verizon Verizon Communications Inc., commonly known as Verizon, is an American multinational telecommunications conglomerate and a corporate component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is headquartered at 1095 Avenue of the Americas in ...

, FedHome Loan Centers,

Google Inc. Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. I ...

Texas Instruments Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an American technology company headquartered in Dallas, Texas, that designs and manufactures semiconductors and various integrated circuits, which it sells to electronics designers and manufacturers globall ...

Optimer Pharmaceuticals Optimer Pharmaceuticals Inc () was a biopharmaceutical company, originally headquartered in San Diego, California, and later moved to Jersey City, New Jersey, United States. The company focused on developing specialty drugs to treat gastrointest ...

, The ACTIVE Network, Advanced Test Equipment Rentals,

Forcepoint Forcepoint, an American multinational corporation software company headquartered in Austin, Texas, that develops computer security software and data protection, cloud access security broker, firewall and cross-domain solutions. Forcepoint ...

(formerly

Websense Forcepoint, an American multinational corporation software company headquartered in Austin, Texas, that develops computer security software and data protection, cloud access security broker, firewall and cross-domain solutions. Forcepoint was fo ...

), Einstein Medical,

Hologic Hologic, Inc. is a medical technology company primarily focused on women’s health; it sells medical devices for diagnostics, surgery, and medical imaging. History In late November 2013, activist investor Carl Icahn disclosed a 12.5% stake in ...

Dexcom DexCom, Inc. is a company that develops, manufactures, produces, and distributes continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) systems for diabetes management. It operates internationally with headquarters in San Diego, California, and has a manufacturing ...

, NuVasive, T-Mobile,

PriceWaterhouseCoopers PricewaterhouseCoopers is an international professional services brand of firms, operating as partnerships under the PwC brand. It is the second-largest professional services network in the world and is considered one of the Big Four accounting ...

(PwC), and Scripps Clinic. In 2011 the

Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, ...

announced plans to move into a $100 million, six-story building on Vista Sorrento Parkway in Sorrento Valley. The building houses 400 special agents and support staff; the FBI occupied the building in May 2013.

Other notable sites

Karl Strauss Brewing Company Karl Strauss Brewing Company is a San Diego, California-based craft brewery with eleven brewpub locations across Southern California and an onsite tasting room at their main brewery in the Pacific Beach neighborhood of San Diego. Besides being av ...

, a craft beer brewing company, has a location in Sorrento Valley.

Personal income

The community (ZIP Code 92121) has a median income of approximately $102,391 per year.

Transportation

The west edge of Sorrento Valley contains the merge at

and

I-805 Interstate 805 (I-805) is a major north–south List of auxiliary Interstate Highways, auxiliary Interstate Highway in Southern California. It is a bypass (road), bypass auxiliary route of Interstate 5 in California, I-5, running roughly th ...

. The Sorrento Valley train station is a stop for the Coaster commuter and Amtrak Pacific Surfliner rail lines, which provide train links to Oceanside and

Major company headquarters

corporate headquarters *

Accelrys BIOVIA is a software company headquartered in the United States, with representation in Europe and Asia. It provides software for chemical, materials and bioscience research for the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, consumer packaged goods, aerospa ...

US corporate headquarters *

Arena Pharmaceuticals Arena Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is an American biopharmaceutical company founded in 1997 and headquartered in San Diego, California. The company has small molecule drugs in development for possible clinical utility in multiple therapeutic areas. The ...

corporate headquarters *

Webster University Webster University is a private university with its main campus in Webster Groves, Missouri. It has multiple branch locations across the United States and countries across Europe, Asia, and Africa. It offers undergraduate and graduate programs ...

San Diego Metropolitan Campus * VA Home Loan Centers corporate headquarters *

corporate headquarters

External links

Sorrento Valley Town Council

Sorrento Valley - City of San Diego

References

* {{Neighborhoods of San Diego Neighborhoods in San Diego