City Wants to Sell Site of Massacre to Buy Parkland

The site of a former San Ysidro McDonald’s restaurant where 21 people were killed by a crazed gunman should be sold to finance a monument and park elsewhere in honor of the victims of the tragedy, the San Diego city manager’s office will recommend.

Deputy City Manager Jack McGrory said Wednesday that his office will recommend placing a memorial marker on a quarter-acre parcel adjacent to the city’s branch library on San Ysidro Boulevard, about half a mile away from the massacre site.

In addition, the manager’s office is hoping to purchase a four- or five-acre parcel within a mile or two of the massacre site to build a memorial park with soccer and baseball fields, said McGrory. Several parcels have been identified for potential purchase, he said.

Money for the marker and park, said McGrory, will come from the anticipated sale of the massacre site, which was donated to the city by McDonald’s Corp. shortly after the nation’s worst single-event mass murder. Selling the land could net the city $350,000 to $400,000, McGrory estimated.

Parcel Too Small

“We wanted to do something that represented a significant benefit to the community,” McGrory said, adding that putting a park on the massacre site is “not appropriate” since the three-quarter-acre parcel is too small and in a commercial area.

McGrory said the manager’s recommendation follows three months of discussion with Councilwoman Celia Ballesteros, whose 8th District includes San Ysidro. Ballesteros was out of town and unavailable for comment Wednesday.

Paul Clark, executive director of the San Ysidro Chamber of Commerce, said Wednesday that he was “rather surprised” by the recommendation to sell the McDonald’s site.

“People have been looking for some type of marker on the spot, some kind of recognition for the spot,” he said. “They felt that they were going to get something there. If they take that away now, I think it would cause a lot of problems in the community.”

The city manager’s recommendation will be forwarded to the City Council’s Public Facilities and Recreation Committee in May or June for consideration, McGrory said.

On July 18, 1984, James O. Huberty, 41, shot and killed 21 people and wounded 19 others after he walked into the McDonald’s restaurant at 522 W. San Ysidro Blvd. The tragedy ended when a police marksman shot and killed Huberty.

The incident rocked the country, and since then the question of what to do with the site has been a thorny one. Survivors of those killed in the tragedy have demanded a memorial to their relatives at the site, while local merchants represented by the San Ysidro Chamber have favored using only a portion of the property for a memorial, leaving the remainder for an acceptable commercial use.

The lingering dispute became the city’s when the McDonald’s Corp. bulldozed the restaurant in September, 1984, and gave the parcel to the city a month later.

The property is now a vacant lot, except for a homemade memorial in the form of a religious statue.