Ralston Purina Surrenders Cannery Site
The owner of an idle tuna cannery off Harbor Drive, unable to find a suitable use for the property, has surrendered the site and its buildings to the San Diego Unified Port District.
The Board of Port Commissioners voted Tuesday to allow Ralston Purina Co. to terminate its lease, which was set to expire March 31, 2014. The Van Camp Seafood Co. will continue to operate a warehouse on the site as a tenant of the Port District.
The entire parcel was formerly owned by Van Camp, which operated its cannery on the 10th Avenue Marina Terminal site. The property was subsequently purchased by Ralston Purina, which shut down the cannery in June, 1984. The facility has been mostly vacant since, except for the warehouse space, which is subleased to Van Camp.
Ralston Purina has since struggled to put the property to a profitable use, but was stymied when the Port District rejected its plans last month for a trash recycling center on the site. The commissioners found that the plant would create too much traffic and would be incompatible with the hotels and other tourist attractions in the area. Also, the lease with the Port District required that the site be used for marine-related industry, a provision the commissioners felt was not satisfied by Ralston Purina’s proposal that the recycled trash be removed by ships.
Ralston Purina subsequently asked to be released from the lease, under which it was paying $842,412 a year. The company, which has paid the Port District about $3.4 million on the lease since shutting the cannery, has been seeking to recoup its losses, but a plan to turn the property over to a real estate developer was also rejected by the Port District last year.
The commissioners voted unanimously and without comment Tuesday to release Ralston Purina from the lease, despite the loss of revenue that will result until another renter can be found. The Port District’s staff recommended the move because it will give the district greater freedom in the development and use of the area.
According to the staff report by Port District Director Don Nay, two businesses have expressed an interest in leasing the space, including a Japanese company that wishes to store locally caught fish awaiting shipment to Japan.
