The George Hill Building rose in 1897 on the corner of Sixth Avenue and F Street, replacing the burned remains of Horton's Hall, the two-story brick auditorium Alonzo Horton had completed in 1870 as San Diego's first real public hall. Someone financed a three-story speculative office block in the middle of San Diego's empty decade, five years into a depression that had taken five of the city's eight banks. The program was five storerooms on the ground floor and thirty offices on the two upper floors, a substantial bet on professional tenancy in a city that had collapsed from perhaps 40,000 people in 1888 to around 16,000 by 1890. The California State Normal School, the institution that became San Diego State University, leased upper floors here in 1897 before its University Heights campus opened in 1899, which means the university began in rented rooms above storefronts on F Street.
The building is a three-story brick commercial block measuring 15,639 square feet on a 5,000 square foot lot. The design is a straightforward speculative office type, different from most of its Fifth Avenue neighbors, which are stores below and hotel rooms above. The architect remains unidentified.
