Downtown Plan Wins Grudging Oceanside OK

OCEANSIDE —  Five years ago, redevelopment officials here deployed the bulldozers on a two-block patch of land downtown, clearing away the thicket of pawn shops and run-down bars they said were saddling the seaside city with a bad reputation.

With images of gleaming office towers dancing in their heads, civic leaders heralded the demolition job as a rebirth for Oceanside, the spark that would ignite the city’s efforts to redevelop its withering downtown. Then they waited. And waited.

Developers came and went, but nothing ever got built. As the weeks gave way to months and then years, grass was planted on the vacant land. Some residents, to the dismay of redevelopment officials eager to see buildings sprouting from the soil, began referring to the parcel as “the park.”

Indeed, even as Oceanside’s urban renewal program has begun to pay off in recent years, the vacant blocks have remained a nagging blemish on the downtown landscape--and the city’s redevelopment record.

Tuesday, however, Oceanside leaders took steps that they hope will change all that. A divided City Council approved a development agreement for a 38,000-square-foot office building on the northern half of the most prominent of the blocks, near the intersection of Mission Avenue and Hill Street in the heart of downtown Oceanside.

With Mayor Larry Bagley and Councilman Sam Williamson dissenting, the council voted 3 to 2 in favor of proceeding with the $3.5-million project, a three-story office structure with retail stores on the ground floor.

“This is an important block,” said Lawrence O’Harra, developer of the project. “It’s the block that’s going to make redevelopment happen downtown.”

Long the subject of controversy, the site remained just that on Tuesday. Bagley and Williamson complained that the proposed development, in essence, wouldn’t give the city enough bang for its buck.

Both said the $255,200 price tag for the land being purchased by Oceanside Venture, a joint partnership formed by O’Harra to build the office building, was simply too low.

In addition, Bagley and Williamson suggested that a plan to lease half the city-owned block to Oceanside Venture for $1 a year for parking was unreasonable. The deal, they said, effectively gives the land away until the city can afford to build a multimillion-dollar parking structure.

Finally, they argued, the proposed development was not the sort of large-scale project needed to fuel the downtown revitalization effort.

“If we’re talking about the next two to three years, this is probably the best we’re going to get,” Bagley said, adding that he is “not afraid of waiting more than two or three years.”

But other council members disagreed, saying the office building was a timely and needed project for Oceanside.

Councilman Ted Marioncelli stressed that the council should be careful to fit its redevelopment dreams to the existing framework of the city.

“We’re not Anaheim,” Marioncelli said. “We’re redeveloping the City of Oceanside.”

Councilman John MacDonald, meanwhile, stressed that the office building was needed to push Oceanside’s redevelopment efforts forward, even if it wasn’t the most grandiose deal that could have been put together.

“We’ve had a considerable amount of momentum for redevelopment in the last two years,” MacDonald said. “I’d like to see a structure with larger square footage, but I want to maintain that momentum.”

The council’s action came despite a plea from another development firm, Meyer Investment Properties Inc., that any decision be put off for 90 days so it could submit a proposal for a project covering both vacant blocks and another two blocks to the north.

Mary Ellen O’Donnell, a vice president with the Anaheim-based firm, said the company was eager to build a master-planned development that would integrate several of the blocks into a larger project.

The firm has signed an agreement with Rex Shuffler, principal owner of the second vacant block, to develop a project using both the city-owned block and Shuffler’s land, O’Donnell said.

Shuffler’s involvement with the site goes back to the beginning.

In 1981, the city’s redevelopment agency began assembling the two blocks to make way for construction of twin 11-story office towers by Office Building Inc., a Bay Area firm selected by city leaders to undertake the pioneering project.

Shuffler balked at the price that was being proposed for his land and Oceanside officials took action to acquire the property through condemnation. In the midst of that fight, the proposed twin-tower project collapsed after Office Buildings Inc. failed to fulfill stipulations of a development agreement with the city.

Nonetheless, city officials pressed forward with their efforts to acquire Shuffler’s land, figuring it was needed so the two blocks could be consolidated for a major project in the future.

After years of legal maneuvering, a Superior Court judge earlier this year set the price on the land at $1.2 million, far above the $800,000 that city officials were willing to pay. Stung by the setback, the city abandoned its efforts to take over the land.

Kenneth Golden, a Westminster attorney representing Shuffler, told the council Tuesday that his client had been eager to take over development of the parcels after the twin-tower project fell through, but was rebuffed by members of the redevelopment staff and has been unable to make headway ever since.

Oceanside officials deny that claim, saying they have not received any sort of communication from Shuffler in five years.

Golden said the Oceanside Venture project was adding to “the hodgepodge” of development in downtown Oceanside and represented a short-sighted solution to the area’s woes.

“In 20 years, it’s going to look just like it does now,” he said.

After the council’s vote, Golden denied charges that Shuffler and Meyer Investment were not serious about development in Oceanside. He accused the council of refusing to grant the 90-day delay because of bad feelings for Shuffler.

“We’ve beaten them (in court) every time they’ve opened their mouths,” Golden said, adding that Shuffler now will probably seek an injunction blocking the Oceanside Venture project.