Leucadia's North 101 Is Being Rebuilt Around Grandview Street

The north end of the Leucadia Streetscape is almost finished, and most of the remaining work points to Grandview Street. Right now, Grandview is one of two places where you can get from the through lane to the shops. One of the two half-built roundabouts sits at Grandview, waiting to be finished. Grandview and Phoebe Street are also the two spots chosen for a new legal way to cross the railroad tracks. Once the work between Jupiter Street and La Costa Avenue wraps up, a corner most drivers used to pass without slowing will be carrying three separate projects.

The City of Encinitas still targets "late Fall 2026" for finishing Segment C and the North Coast Highway 101 drainage work. That date comes from the project page's September 17 update. Here's what that looks like on the street this week, and what's still left.

Getting to your regular spots this week

The city laid out the current traffic setup in its August 26, 2026 update to City Council. Crews are working on the west side of North 101 between La Costa and Jupiter, so the southbound side works like this:

1. All through traffic uses the median lane.
2. Between La Costa and Grandview, the western lane is open only to driveways for private property.
3. South of Grandview, you reach local businesses through an opening into the western lane.
4. Those openings are at Grandview and at Avocado Street.
5. Traffic merges back into the median lane at Avocado and at Jupiter.

If you're heading south to a shop on the west side, plan to use the Grandview opening. Northbound is trickier. Leucadia Donut Shoppe owner Tom Chu told The Coast News in July that many northbound customers have to keep going to La Costa Avenue and make a U-turn to reach his shop. Stacy Reddell, executive director of the Leucadia 101 Mainstreet Association, told the paper the lack of a closer U-turn has hit businesses up and down the corridor.

The city says driveway and business access will stay open throughout the work. Expect intermittent lane shifts, noise, dust, work lights and large construction vehicles.

The digging is done. The work you'll see comes next.

Most of what made this stretch so slow is now underground. The city's August presentation lists 4,000 feet of 60-inch and 66-inch storm drain pipe installed along the east side, 220 feet of 36-inch pipe bored under the La Costa and 101 intersection, and 1,000 feet of new 12-inch water line from Jupiter to Avocado. Some of that drainage trench work required shoring more than 30 feet deep, plus groundwater dewatering. The city's September update confirms that all of the 60-inch, 66-inch and 36-inch pipe is in.

Here's the city's list of final work items for the Streetscape, and almost all of it is above ground:

• Finish the roundabouts at Jupiter and Grandview
• Complete utility connections along the west edge of the project
• Plant 116 trees
• Install 45 streetlights
• Add irrigation and mulch in the landscaped areas
• Lay final asphalt, plus signs and striping, for all traffic from La Costa to Jupiter

The city's project page also lists wider sidewalks, marked bike lanes, crosswalks with a pedestrian signal at Avocado, and new benches and bike racks for Segment C. Seven NCTD bus shelters are also part of the roadway plan. South of La Costa on the west side, crews have been building new curb, gutter, sidewalk, a bus pad, a bus shelter pad and driveways.

On the roundabouts, the city's project page still names Jupiter and Moorgate Road. The newer August presentation says crews have already installed half-roundabouts at Jupiter and Grandview, and it lists finishing those two as remaining work. If you've been driving past Grandview, you've been driving past half of one.

How long this has taken

Comparing the north end to the rest of the corridor helps explain why finishing this stretch matters. The Coast News puts the whole Streetscape, which covers 2.5 miles, at more than $65 million. Here's the timeline it reported, along with the city's dates for Segment C:

Segment C was originally supposed to be done by summer 2025. Encinitas Director of Engineering Dan Nutter told The Coast News that the added drainage work stretched the timeline by about a year and a half. The city's own figures show the scale. The contract started with 380 working days, and change orders added 309 more, for a total of 689 working days, or about two years and ten months. The Segment C and drainage budget is $31.6 million. A $20 million I-Bank loan is the largest funding source, and $4 million comes from HUD.

In July, Nutter told the paper he expected Segment C to be done by October. The city's September update moved that to late fall.

This end of the corridor gets finished first. The Coast News reports that designs are complete for Segment B, which runs from Basil to Jupiter, and Segment A1, from A Street to Marcheta, but neither has construction funding yet. For now, the finished street stops at Jupiter.

Grandview's next project is a rail crossing

The roundabout isn't the only change planned at Grandview. The city is designing pedestrian and bicycle crossings over the tracks at Grandview and Phoebe streets. They would serve the 1.3-mile stretch between Leucadia Boulevard and La Costa Avenue, which the city says has had no legal pedestrian crossing. According to the city's rail crossings project page, the California Public Utilities Commission approved both crossings on February 5, 2026, and City Council set aside another $300,000 for final engineering on June 17.

In August, The Coast News reported that Encinitas was selected for up to $33.6 million in federal rail funding, and the Grandview and Phoebe crossings are part of that package. No construction date for the crossings has been announced, and design on the city's page was last described as moving past the 35% stage.

The shops along North 101 are still open

The businesses along this stretch have stayed open through the years of construction. Leucadia 101 Mainstreet's Reddell told The Coast News that the 20 businesses she surveyed saw sales drop by an average of 25% to 40% over the year before that July report. Owners told the paper that losing street parking and having limited access points made it harder for customers to stop.

Here are a few places that were in that reporting, plus one more on the same blocks of North 101:

• Fish 101, 1468 N. Coast Highway 101, open for dine-in or pickup
• The Leucadian Bar, 1542 N. Coast Highway 101, co-owned by David Shapiro, who told The Coast News that losing street parking has cut into event bookings
• Leucadia Cyclery, 1560 N. Coast Hwy 101, owned by Jeff Schade, who also sits on the Leucadia 101 Mainstreet board
• Leucadia Donut Shoppe, 1604 N. Coast Hwy 101, owned by Tom Chu
• Sip-N-Sea, the walk-up window run by Giuseppe Georgees, where the city added temporary orange barricades out front during construction

Shapiro summed up the trade-off for The Coast News. He acknowledged the need for the road and drainage improvements and still said, "Revenue got stagnant as soon as the project started." On its project page, the city's own message is short: "Please support our local Leucadia businesses during construction."

The city's North Highway 101 project page is the place to watch for the completion announcement. It also links business maps and FAQs for Segment C. According to the August presentation, the city also holds monthly in-person meetings, sends email updates and posts monthly drone footage of the work.

I've been helping people buy and sell along this coast for more than two decades. If you're wondering how a finished Grandview roundabout, new sidewalks and future rail crossings might change things on your block, or what it could mean for a home along this stretch, I'm glad to walk the street with you and talk it through. Reach out to Beach and Sun Homes and schedule a call.