OCEANSIDE — City planners approved the addition of three research and development buildings, four drive-thru restaurants and a gas station with a car wash within El Corazon Park to help fund the park’s development and maintenance needs.
The Oceanside Planning Commission on April 24 approved the 533,700-square-foot development consisting of 497,000 square feet of research and development facilities and 35,800 square feet of commercial space.
As part of the approval, nine conditional-use permits were required for the research and development facilities’ onsite manufacturing and handling and storage of hazardous materials. Permits were also required for the gas station, convenience store, car wash, and drive-thru restaurants.
The Planning Commission voted 6-1 to approve the development plan and conditional use permits for the project, with Commissioner Kevin Dodds opposed.
The new development will fill the space designated as the Oceanside Boulevard Commercial (OBC) area in the El Corazon Specific Plan along Oceanside Boulevard.
Sudberry Development, the company responsible for developing El Corazon, purchased the 51.1 acres of vacant commercial land along Oceanside Boulevard last year for the project free of charge. Sudberry is also the developer of the new Frontwave Arena currently under construction.
While the city did not receive any payment for the land as per its Commercial DDA agreement with Sudberry, the city can expect an estimated annual economic benefit of about $710,000. Of that amount, approximately $395,000 will be annual tax revenue for the city.
The new businesses are also projected to create 784 jobs.
The largest research and development building with a proposed 251,500 square feet of space will house Ionis Pharmaceuticals, generating about 200 new jobs, most of which with six-figure incomes.
The project will include 1,647 total parking spaces. Each facility will have its own parking lot and shared commercial parking for the commercial buildings.
Two new traffic signals will be installed at the intersection of Oceanside Boulevard and Village Commercial Drive, another at the intersection of Village Commercial Drive and a road marked “Private Drive” within the development plans.
The project will include walkways, new bike lanes along Village Commercial and South El Corazon Drive and a new bus stop along Rancho Del Oro Drive.
The commercial buildings will have Irving Gill-style elements, mission-style roof lines, and Spanish tiles. In contrast, the research buildings will feature a contemporary style with glazed windows, metal accents and horizontal siding.
Staff found the project consistent with the El Corazon Specific Plan and other city zoning ordinances.
Despite the staff’s findings, several community members remain concerned about the project’s environmental and traffic impacts.
Tom Lichterman, chairman of the Oceanside Bicycle and Pedestrian Committee, said four drive-thru restaurants do not reflect the vision statement or sustainability guidelines of the El Corazon Specific Plan.
“Instead of having a pedestrian-friendly development, this is highly automobile-oriented,” he said.
City Planner Sergio Madera said the goal of the commercial project is to provide enough revenue for future development and maintenance in the park.
“Like it or not, drive-thru restaurants are high sales tax generators, gas stations are high sales tax generators, so if we’re looking to meet the intent of the OBC which is to provide revenue for future park development and maintenance, this project checks that box,” Madera said.
Joan Bockman, president of Friends of El Corazon, a group that serves as a park steward to ensure its development is consistent with the community’s vision, cautioned the city about where it puts the removed soil.
The plan is to move soil from project grading to just west of the site and north of the SoCal Sports Complex.
“If we put dirt in the wrong place, it will stay there forever, and we lose an opportunity to move forward,” Bockman said. “We want this project to be done, but we don’t want to lose the park.”
The city can potentially use sandy soil extracted from El Corazon to replenish the city’s beaches. However, the city’s beach sand permit requires a series of tests from the Army Corps of Engineers and the California Coastal Commission first. The sand also must be heavy enough to be placed on the beach.
“The last thing we want to do is deposit sand only to have it float away,” said city engineer Brian Thomas. “This is a lengthy process that will take several weeks to move forward… certainly if we can use it on the beach, we will, but we have a time frame where we’re allowed to do so, and if we’re outside that time frame, the sand will have to be stockpiled until allowed.”
Bockman later said the city needs to address El Corazon first.
The 465 acres that make up El Corazon Park, previously a silica sand mine, were sold to the city in 1994. Over the next decade, the city and community worked to define how the land would be used, which included parks and recreation, habitat, civic services, commercial projects and hotel uses, which led to approval of the El Corazon Specific Plan.
“El Corazon is a park, it will always be a park,” Bockman said. “It is so much more than the developments that come forward.”
