Oceanside's surf museum headed for new digs

By: PAUL SISSON - Staff Writer | Saturday, June 16, 2007 12:20 AM PDT ∞

OCEANSIDE ---- The California Surf Museum appears to be headed around the corner from its current Coast Highway storefront to a city-owned building that formerly housed the Playgirl strip club.

At its meeting Wednesday, the Oceanside City Council is scheduled to consider a five-year lease with the popular museum for the 6,000-square-foot former Playgirl building in the 300 block of Pier View Way.

The city's redevelopment agency, which purchased and closed the building for $700,000 in 2002, would also loan the museum between $400,000 and $500,000 to pay for renovations. Those renovations, according to a city report, would include a new facade for the aging building and internal modifications to help make the transition to museum complete.

Daryl Dick, president of the museum's board of directors, said he is excited about the opportunity to triple the museum's floor space.

"The down side is, we're moving off of Coast Highway," he said. "But moving down onto Pier View Way does get us closer to the ocean."

He said the move should provide space for the museum to expand its exhibits and offer more activities for anyone interested in surfing.

"It will allow us to do more events on a larger scale," he said.

Oceanside's Redevelopment Advisory Committee, which met Thursday, unanimously recommended that the council negotiate a $100-per-month lease with the museum. The lease would include forgiving one-fifth of the renovation loan for every year the museum stays in the location.

Rick Wright, owner of a downtown gift shop and chair of the committee, noted Friday that the museum is a popular destination and added that it needs more space for exhibits.

"I think everyone realizes that we are going to have to provide a better place for the museum if we are going to keep it around," Wright said.

He added that the city's long-term downtown development plans call for the museum to eventually occupy a ground-level spot within a new multilevel city parking garage planned to replace an existing parking lot on Cleveland Street. The lot will include a range of store fronts on its ground level and will provide hundreds of parking spots for visitors headed to the beach or to a planned five-block development that will straddle the railroad tracks between Cleveland and Meyers streets.

Moving is nothing new for the museum, which logs about 20,000 visitors annually. Founded in 1986 in Encinitas, the museum relocated to Pacific Beach before moving to a small building in Oceanside on Pacific Street in 1992. In 1995, the museum moved into a city-leased 2,000-square-foot building, where it currently resides.

Contact staff writer Paul Sisson at (760) 901-4087 or psisson@nctimes.com.