New Image : There’s a Renaissance Afoot in Oceanside’s Hard-Luck Downtown

Subtle clues to downtown Oceanside’s vanished architectural charm--an ornate brick cornice here, a colorful mosaic entryway there--protrude from their entombment under generations of monolithic building renovations.

It was a grand era, the 1920s, when residents of the then-renowned beach resort lined Hill Street in their new downtown, straining to glimpse the touring cars that sped Hollywood stars toward Tijuana’s legal gambling and liquor on the weekends.

The downtown never exactly resembled the high glory of pre-World War I Vienna, but Oceanside’s eclectic architecture, featuring Mission Revival, Greek Classical Revival and Richardsonian Gothic romance, gave the city nothing to apologize for.

Then, changing and troubled times came to town.

One generation’s Art Deco is kitsch to the next, so once-stately buildings were updated and their original features disguised or covered. The city’s long and slow architectural transformation was joined by social unrest, fury over the Vietnam War and sometimes-violent conflict involving Camp Pendleton Marines, hippies and surfers. Downtown declined.

In recent years, San Diego County’s third-largest city, with 107,000 people, has begun to recapture its gentler past with a $30-million Spanish-style civic center that is nearing completion, a reconstructed pier and artful parks, housing and recreational facilities along the Strand.

But, in a county of fashionable, dreamy seaside communities, Oceanside is still tainted by its image of a dangerous and visually forbidding downtown. Now the city’s redevelopment agency, merchants and an idealistic architect are trying to recast the commercial hub and prove that Oceanside is coming of age once again.

“The people here are getting hope for the downtown,” said Dr. Randall Smith, a dentist who owns a two-story building, circa 1948, on 3rd Street.

Smith is the first owner to spruce up his building under the redevelopment agency’s 1988 facade-improvement program, which targeted a lackluster six-block area of downtown that contains 50 structures. So far, 15 other owners have applied under the program, which offers direct subsidies or five-year renovation loans marked down to 3% interest.

Interest in the program demonstrates a growing belief that Oceanside’s downtown is verging on a renaissance, as more stable businesses move in, store vacancies drop and the city continues cracking down on gaudy outdoor merchandising and public boozing by transients and others.

“I don’t think you’ll find many merchants downtown who don’t understand what the potential is,” said David Hadsell, who owns American Travel Service at Mission Avenue and Tremont Street, a business started by his father, Don, in 1946. “We’re starting to realize what we’ve got. We’re a healthy community that still has parking and affordable housing.”

Despite all the years of snooty disdain by outsiders, there’s even a feeling of inevitability that downtown Oceanside will rise again based on, if nothing else, the city’s location.

As Smith pointed out, “They’re not making any more coastline.”

Still, the new optimism and evidence of progress doesn’t mislead anybody about how far Oceanside must come.

Hill Street, the main drag through downtown, is the old U.S. 101 that carried decades of travelers between Los Angeles and San Diego. As the chief thoroughfare before Interstate 5 opened, Hill Street, especially south of downtown, became a plain, gritty strip of service commerce, everything from quick diners to car lots. It remains unattractive.

The immediate downtown, where palm trees or cozy places to sit and dawdle are scarce, is largely an assortment of various-size stucco boxes with cosmetic embellishments. First evaluations aren’t normally charitable.

“Three million people use our beaches a year, and most of them get their first impression of Oceanside by entering the intersection of Mission and Hill,” said Stebbins Dean, executive vice president of the Oceanside Chamber of Commerce.

Hadsell observed of downtown: “It’s not crumbling down, it’s just dull. It needs polish.”

Nobody disagrees, certainly not the 14-year-old redevelopment agency or noted San Diego architect Wayne Donaldson, who is assisting the agency’s facade program.

Donaldson sees the downtown of his native Oceanside as a place where the past can be recaptured through the architectural treasures hidden just beneath the surface of old buildings that were redone from the 1940s through the ‘70s.

“It’s difficult anymore to find any building from our ‘20s or early ‘30s that hasn’t been screwed up over the ground floor,” Donaldson said.

Fortunately, he said, “most of the buildings behind the facades are still there.”

Donaldson is a passionate advocate of rejuvenating downtown by returning its buildings to their architectural genesis.

“Each building should be respected for the time it was built,” he said, pointing out some barely visible signs of the past. High atop the plain front of a clothing store, he spied the square brick cornice of the circa 1925 First National Bank. Farther up Hill Street, he noted the broken and faded, but ornately tiled, entrance to a now ramshackle building.

Another block away, Donaldson lavished enthusiasm on a comparatively newer building, one of the few downtown that still gives a full sense of itself. It is the Star movie house, with a high, star-festooned harp-shaped neon sign that pays homage to ‘50s-era car fins and beehive hairdos.

“It’s a gem,” Donaldson said, again imploring that, if a building must be changed, “make it something that’s original to its character.”

But Donaldson realizes that, even under redevelopment’s facade program, it’s too expensive for many merchants to completely strip away the sins of successive remodelings to regain the original.

“Most of the people want to go back to the original design but simply can’t afford it,” he said, estimating that restoration costs 40% more than facade work, which is generally less extensive and less expensive than major restorations.

So most applicants who get free help from Donaldson under the facade program come away with more economical ways to upgrade their buildings.

Smith, the dentist, began his Oceanside practice in 1981 and bought his office building five years ago, yearning for the day he could improve its looks. Under the redevelopment program, the building got a $15,000 face lift under a 3% loan from the Bank of America.

His rather basic building is now embellished by attractive awnings, repatched stucco and a painted trim of green and salmon.

“I have compliments every day about the building,” Smith said. “I just wanted to feel better about myself.”

Such enthusiasm for beautifying downtown is gratifying to Patricia Hightman, the city’s redevelopment director, who has had her fill of Oceanside’s reputation as a grungy, troubled place that is best bypassed.

“The reality no longer warrants the perception,” she said. “You’ve got attitudes left over from the early ‘70s.”

Given the magnitude of the redevelopment undertaking, Hightman is proud of her city’s progress, especially the Strand and the new civic center that purposely was given an address on Hill Street.

She said downtown has virtually had to return from the dead after a generation when social unrest and physical decay caused merchants and shoppers to flee the business district.

So it rankles her when people compare the stunning redevelopment success of downtown Carlsbad to Oceanside.

“They had to do a face lift,” she said. “We’ve had to do a heart-lung transplant.”

Oceanside attempted a building-facade project once before, but the effort drummed up little enthusiasm as owners recoiled at the extensive application process needed to obtain federal block grant funds.

“It had a lot of strings. People weren’t interested in putting in so much effort,” Hightman said.

This time around, it is redevelopment agency money that’s being used--$200,000 that Hightman figures will assist with 25 facade jobs--and a more straightforward application.

However, despite the number of applicants, there is some misgiving. Hadsell said that “before a lot of these people spend substantial amounts of dough, they want a guarantee the agency isn’t going to evict them” to make way for redevelopment.

Some merchants are awaiting a city report declaring which structures don’t meet state earthquake standards and need reinforcement before they consider expensive visual improvements.

Still, Hightman believes that “Hill Street is starting to come along,” partly because new owners are locating downtown and replacing absentee owners who are sometimes less interested in beautification.

As for Donaldson, he hopes for the day when downtown is studded with palms and amenities, including walkways from the commercial blocks leading down to the Strand, where the gleaming beach, grand pier and gentle bluffs remain the soul of Oceanside.