OCEANSIDE APPROVES SALE OF 51 ACRES OF PARK FOR PHARMACEUTICAL SITE

Mayor voted no, says city needs more sports fields, recreational facilities

Oceanside approved the sale of 51 acres of El Corazon Park this week to a developer that plans to build a mixed-use project with an industrial center for three tenants, including Ionis Pharmaceuticals.

Mayor Esther Sanchez opposed the sale, saying the city is giving away its El Corazon parkland with too little in return, but others on the City Council said Oceanside made the deal years ago and can't back out now.

“This breaks my heart,” Sanchez said at Wednesday's council meeting. “In 22 years, we have done so little to turn this into a park.”

El Corazon, named for its location in “the heart” of Oceanside, is more than 450 acres donated by U.S. Silica to the city in 1994.

Situated east of El Camino Real and north of Oceanside Boulevard, the property was a shambles after more than 60 years of open-pit sand mining. The city planned to rehabilitate the land and build parks, ball fields and a golf course or community center, supported by tax revenue from hotels and commercial development on a portion of the site.

Some of those things have been built — including a senior center, an aquatics center and condominiums — but the parks, ball fields and trails have been slow in coming. Meanwhile, the available land has been shrinking.

The City Council sold two vacant parcels of commercial land to Sudberry in 2021 as the sites for a 268-unit apartment complex and a 7,500-seat indoor sports arena.

Both of those facilities are now under construction. The arena will be the new home of the San Diego Sockers, a professional soccer team that now plays its home games at San Diego's Pechanga Arena.

In each of the sales, Sudberry paid no cash for the property. Instead, the company shouldered development costs and other related expenses. Development costs in the deal approved Wednesday were estimated at $186 million.

Ionis is a 33-year-old biotech company with headquarters in Carlsbad. The company makes three commercially approved medicines and has four more drugs in advanced studies.

The company expects to occupy the Oceanside facility in 2025 and begin manufacturing pharmaceutical ingredients there in mid-2026. The new facility will more than double the size of the

Ionis development chemistry and manufacturing center in Carlsbad.

A majority of the 200 jobs generated by Ionis are expected to hold six-figure salaries, according to a study done for the city by the consulting firm Keyser Marston Associates, Inc.

Property and sales tax revenue from the entire mixed-use development are estimated to generate about $710,000 annually for the city, the consultants said.

No other tenants have been announced so far, but when fully occupied the mixed-use development could have as many as 700 full-time employees.

In last year’s agreement for the arena property, Sudberry will build a parking structure worth $5.5 million that the city will own, and will pay rent and maintenance to the city estimated at $450,000 annually. Also, the city will collect property and sales tax estimated at $534,000 annually, according to a city staff report.

The property sales are allowed by an agreement the city approved in January 2013 with Sudberry, the

park’s master developer. The deal allows the company to buy a site if it can show that a lease would not be profitable.

Sudberry signed a lease in 2013 on property for the SoCal Sports Complex, an array of 22 soccer fields and a parking lot used for regional weekend tournaments near the senior center on the southeast side of the property. The lease expires in 2039, and includes two 10-year optional extensions.

Councilmembers Ryan Keim and Christopher Rodriguez said Wednesday that Sanchez is the only person now on the council who was there when the original Sudberry agreement was approved.

“That’s the deal you made, mayor,” Keim said. “We have to follow through with it,” adding that it’s “disingenuous” for her to say now that she opposes the sale, knowing the council majority will approve it. The council voted 4-1 for the sale with Sanchez opposed.

Rodriguez said the city “just built a $40 million aquatics center on El Corazon” because the project had the council’s support, but there hasn’t been the financial ability or widespread

support for other recreational facilities.

“If the political will was there we could have built this park three times over, four times over,” Rodriguez said.

The Friends of El Corazon, a volunteer group that monitors the property’s development, supports the property sale. But two of the group’s representatives said Wednesday the city should do more to build the park’s recreational facilities.

“Developers don’t pay their fair share for this park or any other park in Oceanside,” said member Diane Nygaard, who asked the city to increase the fees paid by developers to help build parks.

“The city should be working on building a park instead of just the industrial area,” said Joan Bockman, president of Friends of El Corazon. “Nothing has been built on the green part of our park.”

Councilmember Peter Weiss said the only issue on the agenda Wednesday was the sale, and that the city can place conditions on the development when the individual projects come back for review.