Oceanside Puts Focus on Changing Its Image

The view from the freeway is deceiving in this seaside community of more than 92,000, the second largest city in San Diego County.

From Interstate 5, Oceanside today looks very much the way it did five or even 10 years ago. The city’s most visible landmark, the 17-story Oceanside Marina Tower, was built about a decade ago.

Take any freeway exit, either to the east, where housing tracts, mobile-home parks and shopping centers flourish and where the $1-billion, 1,951-acre Rancho del Oro development is being built, or toward the Pacific Ocean, where downtown is being refurbished, and the picture changes.

If all goes as planned, the city will celebrate its centennial in 1988 with a new civic center designed by a team consisting of Charles Moore/Urban Innovations Group of Los Angeles and the Danielson Design Group of San Juan Capistrano.

Chosen last month from among five finalists in a national competition, the winning design borrows heavily from Oceanside’s past by incorporating and restoring the 1929-vintage Irving J. Gill-designed fire administration building into the site plan.

Famous for Dodge House

Gill was one of the most original architects of the first two decades of this century and was a pioneer in the use of concrete. He designed seven buildings in Oceanside in the late 1920s, but perhaps is most famous for the Dodge House, built in Hollywood in 1916, one of a large number of influential buildings in Southern California that were destroyed in the name of progress. Gill also designed several significant buildings in La Jolla and San Diego that are well preserved.

Architect Charles Moore described his design to the 11-member competition jury as “beyond Gill. . . . It’s Gill-like spartan on the outside and warm and gooey inside.”

As team leader, Moore carried out the Gill design theme of white walls, unadorned concrete arcades and flat roofs while adding splashes of color that spill from the arches and major entryways of the 115,000-square-foot project. The cost is estimated at $17 million to $20 million, and will be paid through redevelopment bonds.

Winner of Awards

Moore is head of the architectural program at UCLA and is a partner in the firm of Moore, Grover, Harper in Essex, Conn. He is a fellow of the American Institute of Architects, a Guggenheim fellow and the winner of more than 40 design awards.

Rex Lotery is the president of Urban Innovations Group, a nonprofit corporation operating as an independent adjunct of the UCLA Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Planning. Lotery, a fellow of the AIA, is the principal in charge of the Oceanside project.

Douglas Danielson is the principal in charge of the Danielson Design Group, the primary consultant on the project. The firm is a consultant to Pomona’s downtown redevelopment project and has completed buildings for the cities of San Juan Capistrano and Bellflower.

In an exercise in brutal honesty, several groups in Oceanside--the city, harbor district, redevelopment district and chamber of commerce--more than a year ago commissioned a $15,000 poll to find out what people like about the city and what they dislike.

Conducted by the Stoorza Co., a San Diego public relations firm, the warts-and-all survey of more than 800 persons showed that Oceanside’s strengths include its location, harbor, climate, relatively affordable housing and land, the economic benefits of the Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base and an abundant labor pool.

Perceived weaknesses included an unattractive downtown, a reputation as a rowdy military town with a high crime rate, lack of cooperation within city government, traffic congestion and poor planning.

All in all, those polled rated it about a six on a scale of one to 10, not bad, but with plenty of room for improvement.

Margueretta (Maggie) Gulati, the city’s energetic redevelopment director, points to various elements of the 10-year downtown redevelopment plan, now falling into place, as proof that Oceanside is much more than just an appendage to Camp Pendleton, established in 1942 just north of the city:

--The new civic center will group all the city and harbor district offices--now scattered around the downtown area--in one cohesive area bounded by Hill, Nevada, 4th and 3rd streets, she said. It will also be a source of pride to the city, she said.

--”The relocation of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway freight switching yards to Camp Pendleton will eliminate a major obstacle to coastal access,” she said. “Construction of this $3.6-million project is expected to start momemtarily, with completion nine months later,” she added. “We expect that when completed by the end of this year, 22 acres of prime coast property in the heart of downtown will be available for new residential and commercial development and additional parking space.”

--A restoration of the 39-year-old municipal pier, scheduled for completion this year, will cost $3.5 million. Completion is expected this spring on the 300-foot long concrete entrance to the pier. Following this, the wooden pier, at the foot of 3rd street, will be restored to its original length of about 1,600 feet and a hammerhead with shops will be constructed at its end, Gulati said. Completion of the wooden pier is expected in the spring of 1987. When it was built in 1947, it was said to be the longest pier of its kind in California.

--Construction of several condominium projects in the redevelopment area--including housing for those with moderate incomes--will balance residential growth in a city that has seen a massive flight to the outlying areas to the east, she said.

Residential Development

Gulati is particularly proud of Sea Village Condominiums, a gate-guarded, Cape Cod-styled development specifically created for buyers with moderate incomes. Demand was so strong that 80% of the 50 units were sold before completion of the project last August. The project is less than 550 feet from the beach.

Still another downtown residential project--in many ways the most important one--will be the 293-unit San Miguel Condominium development, east of the Strand from 4th to 7th streets in the block bounded by Myers, Pacific, 4th and 5th streets. The 50 units of Sea Village represent the affordable component of this project; the other 243 units will be market-rate units, Gulati said.

A project of Oceanside Beach Partners, made up of Somerset Development Co. and Watson & Associates, the $50-million development on just under nine acres near the pier should spur other private developments, she said.

Aided Developers

Construction has started on the 54-unit first phase of the market-rate part of the project, scheduled for completion by the end of the year.

“This project is the kind of development that will benefit everyone in the city,” she said, adding that 700 people have expressed interest in buying the 54 units planned for the first phase. She added that the city and its community development commission aided the developers by assembling the land, relocating residents and making public improvements.

In return, the city will reap benefits totaling an estimated $25 million, including about $20 million more in taxes and about $5 million that may be generated through a 1% gross levy on the resale of all condominium units over the next 30 years.

“The San Miguel condominium project will be a major catalyst to the financing of public improvements in the pier area,” Gulati said. “Revenues from this project will be utilized for the acquisition of public parklands planned south of the pier, as well as other redevelopment projects in the area.”

Too, the addition of several hundred residents will help spur the development of new restaurants and shops, improving the commercial balance of this relentlessly suburban community, she indicated.

Also under way is the conversion by Winner’s Circle International of an unattractive apartment project on Pacific Street into the $4-million, 44-unit Beach Club Time Share Resort. Projects like this will help the city achieve its goal of becoming a substantial vacation destination, Gulati said. Completion is scheduled later this year, she added.

Miles inland from downtown Oceanside, on Douglas Drive north of the San Luis Rey River adjacent to Camp Pendleton, is Pilgrim Creek Estates, a subdivision for manufactured housing.

With its curving streets, underground utilities and relatively large lots, it bears little resemblance to the traditional mobile-home park, but it owes its genesis to more than 100 members of the Hillside Park Estates Assn. who began looking for land that they could assemble into an ownership park.

Ann Heimberg, Bob Linden, Ray Lee, Jim Poole and others were shocked to find their monthly lot rental rates escalating in the superheated real estate climate of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Beginning about 1981, they started to search for suitable land in northern San Diego County.

“As our lot rentals went up, the value of our mobile homes decreased,” Heimberg said. “With moving costs of $3,000 to $8,000, our mobile homes weren’t very mobile any more to people on fixed incomes.” “We wanted to be the developers of our own park, but we soon found out how difficult it is for amateurs to develop a real estate project,” said Lee, a retired Los Angeles city employee.

50 Homes in Subdivision

After several false starts, the group found the land and a developer, Rancho Oceanside Investment and Edward Properties Inc., nd broke ground in June, 1984, on the first phase of 203 home sites.

Since that time more than 150 people have moved to the community, with 89 escrows closed, according to Mary Chan, marketing vice president at Edward Properties. Sites are priced from $34,900 and double-wide manufactured houses and sites from $79,900.

The gate-guarded development includes an 8,000-square-foot clubhouse with an auditorium, club rooms, kitchen, lounge, gymnasium and swimming pool and spa, Chan said. A second phase of 196 lots is planned at Pilgrim Creek Estates, she added.

“We think we represent the positive side of mobile home owners controlling their destiny, rather than being controlled by the owner of a rental park,” Heimberg said. “Through our Pilgrim Creek Homeowners Assn., we can control the quality of our environment, allowing in only those manufactured homes that meet our requirements.” She added that the minimum size for a mobile home is 24-by-48 feet.