New businesses – everything from luxury hotels to drive-through doughnut shops – have been opening consistently in Oceanside, and more are on the way, ranging from a downtown CVS Pharmacy to a major sports arena at El Corazon, the city’s economic-development manager, Michelle Geller, told the MainStreet Oceanside Monthly Meeting Tuesday.
Geller said, in its 42 square miles, the city has 6,800 businesses, half of them brick and mortar, providing 54,000 jobs. It’s the third oldest and third largest (population 180,283) in the county.
She showed slides of how sales taxes derived from businesses have increased over the years. First-quarter receipts showed a 10-percent increase last year, she said later. “We are doing quite well,” Geller said. She said it helped when remote workers stayed home in Oceanside and bought here rather than elsewhere where their jobs might be headquartered.
Quick Facts
3rd oldest and 3rd largest city in SD County
Population: 180,299
Number of Households: 63,498
Median Age: 37.8
Avg. Household Income: $112,195
Land Area: 42 square miles
Miles of Coastline: 3.5
Oceanside Harbor (1,000 slips)
Longest pier on the West Coast (1,960)
Geller listed the top businesses in the city: health care, especially with both Tri-City Medical Center and Scripps Health Care having large presences; biotech; manufacturing; athletic-equipment manufacturing; and tourism.
She said her economic development department covers everything from helping with leases and site selection to marketing and working with other organizations like MainStreet, Visit Oceanside, the Chamber of Commerce and regional planning agencies. She told ways in which it helped local businesses during the pandemic with, for instance, loans and easy permitting for outdoor expansions. It helped provide a downtown shuttle service.
Her presentation included pictures of big new completed projects such as the Mission Pacific Hotel and Seabird Resort at the beach with their various drinking and eating establishments and of smaller additions such as two new coffee-and-doughnut drive-throughs on Oceanside Boulevard.
She showed photos of another relatively recently completed major project, the $23-million William A. Wagner Aquatics Center at El Corazon.
Geller included other city projects as well, like two phases of improvement, like new restrooms and landscaping, to the pier area, plans for sand retention and a proposed Coast Highway Corridor plan between state Route 76 and Wisconsin Street including narrowing the roadway from four to two lanes.
The CVS store is going on the corner of Coast Highway and Mission Avenue. Noting that it is a big corporate entity, Geller said not everything can be a mom-and-pop business, as some might wish. But there are lots of new locally owned businesses, ranging from oyster bars to barbecue restaurants. Even a cargo-container restaurant is proposed.
Other major new projects included the planned Behavioral Health Facility at Tri-City Medical Center, a new Coastal Academy High School and expansions at Genentech and Gilead Sciences Inc., as well as major redevelopment of the Oceanside Transit Center site.
In the works are such as the Arroyo Verde Retail Center, Melrose Heights apartments and Hilton hotels at El Corazon as well as the long-planned Inns at Buena Vista Creek. Long-proposed large future projects still in the pipeline are the North River Farms and Ocean Kamp proposals. The latter is on the site of the old drive-in theaters and swap meet.
VIEW SLIDES FROM THE PRESENTATION HERE:
Audience comments centered on the traffic and parking problems that may be created by the 5,000-7,000-seat Frontwave Arena (to be the home of the San Diego Sockers professional team and host concerts) and the amount of housing, some of it multi-story, being planned downtown.
Both Geller and Rick Wright, MainStreet CEO, said downtown residents are needed to support the downtown businesses.
Wright said it’s really hard to keep retail. In response to a question about the future of the Regal Cinema property, he said the downtown cinema was a panacea at the time, although there should have been underground parking, but may not be the best use of that property now. (Redevelopment of the site has been discussed.)
At the beginning of the meeting, Wright announced the visit by Dick Bartlett, who had been one of MainStreet’s longest-serving and most-active volunteers until his move to the Midwest last year. Wright unveiled a large plaque honoring Bartlett on the right side of the back wall of the MainStreet meeting room. Wright noted that Bartlett is the second person to be placed on the “Wall of Honor.” On the left side is the late Dave Thomas, also a volunteer extraordinaire and a photographer for MainStreet. The similar plaques contain a picture of the volunteer and a story about each that appeared in MainStreet’s Discover Downtown quarterly magazine.
Near the end of the meeting, Linda Pena of Carla and Linda’s Walking Food Tours said she has spent months struggling with bureaucracy over requirements for the bus she planned to use for farm tours, but the tours will proceed anyway using other transportation.
Meeting notes by Lola Sherman
The MainStreet Morning Meeting is held on the first Tuesday of each month at 8:30 a.m.
We welcome all parties interested in the progress of Downtown Oceanside, including businesspeople, residents, and City staff.
This informative one-hour meeting is held in an informal discussion format. The general public is always welcome! Come meet your city officials, MainStreet Oceanside staff and members and find out about upcoming events and changes to YOUR downtown and city.
The MainStreet Morning Meeting is held at the MainStreet Oceanside meeting room at 701 Mission Avenue. Call our office for more information or directions at (760) 754-4512.
