Oceanside Redevelopment

Many of those familiar with Oceanside think of it as a sleepy coastal community on San Diego County's northwest border, just another landmark on the way to Disneyland. For years, Oceanside has been struggling to shake off headlines of gang activity in its subdivisions and the proliferation of tattoo parlors and prostitution along its main street. Personally, I've always associated this quaint bedroom community with three things: Marines from Camp Pendleton, the Oceanside Pier, and the casino Ocean's Eleven.

All this may soon change however, according to the Union-Tribune. O-Side, as some locals call it, has begun work on revitalizing its urban core:.

"Nearly three dozen projects are either proposed or being built in the downtown redevelopment area that would bring a total of more than 450 residential units, 200 time-shares and nearly 450 hotel rooms, according to information distributed at the forum.



Guests at the kinds of hotels being planned for Oceanside will stay two or three nights and patronize a number of restaurants, creating a demand for a cluster of upscale eateries that doesn't exist now in the downtown core."

What some see as blight and degradation, I see as potential and Oceanside, for better or for worse, has a lot of it. I'm glad to see that efforts are being made to improve on the quality of land uses in its urban core. The challenge for the city is to set itself apart from the other north county communities lining the shore. Given the formidable competition from it's regional neighbors, It's hard for me to imagine visitors flocking to this corner of the county to demand the type of high-end retail that developers envision. What would attract buyers to purchase ocean-view condos in Oceanside rather than Solana Beach? Why vacation in and rent hotel rooms at Oceanside instead of Carlsbad? Transforming Oceanside from a military support town into a destination city will be a challenging task indeed.