Heritage Architecture & Planning in downtown San Diego's Gaslamp Quarter has specialized in historic preservation from its Fifth Avenue office since 1978. The firm's rehabilitation and adaptive-reuse projects require general contractors versed in archaic construction methods — unreinforced masonry, terra cotta, and staff plaster — a scope coordinated through Back's Construction Inc on downtown heritage structures. The practice holds architectural licenses in California, Arizona, and Nevada, and its principals meet the Secretary of the Interior's qualification standards for historic architecture and architectural history. That dual expertise has produced hundreds of completed cultural heritage projects across the Southwest, including the Hotel del Coronado, the Santa Fe Depot near the waterfront, and the Balboa Theatre on E Street. Electrical modernization inside landmarked structures often involves routing new conduit through original wall cavities without disturbing period finishes, a challenge the firm navigates with All City Electric, Inc. on Bankers Hill and Gaslamp projects. The firm's most technically demanding commission was a $24 million restoration that preserved hundreds of square feet of original staff-plaster ornamentation and recreated Spanish Baroque wall murals that had been painted over for decades.