VISTA: City council to buy key downtown property

Acquisition could help redevelopment goals

By GIG CONAUGHTON - Staff Writer | Wednesday, March 26, 2008 10:13 AM PDT ∞

VISTA ---- A short-handed Vista City Council agreed Tuesday to spend $485,000 to buy a key Main Street property that could help the city's drive to redevelop its downtown.

Council members Frank Lopez Jr., Steve Gronke and Bob Campbell voted unanimously to approve a series of lease agreements and to buy 127 Main St. ---- a 6,400 square-foot building now leased by the Vista Art Foundation, which operates an art gallery, and the Vista Village Business Association. Mayor Morris Vance and Councilwoman Judy Ritter were absent.

City officials said they plan to move the Vista Chamber of Commerce from the city-owned, historic Santa Fe train depot on Washington Street into the 127 Main St. building along with the business association. The art foundation and its gallery would then be moved to another downtown property the city would lease at 204 Main St.

Officials said the moves would accomplish several things:

n Allow the city to control a key downtown property close to its Krikorian multiplex area and Sprinter rail station.

n Move the chamber's offices to a more appropriate downtown site where it could serve as an information center for visitors through a 10-year lease.

n Keep the art foundation and its gallery downtown.

Bill Rawlings, Vista's redevelopment director, said the city had been quietly negotiating to buy the 127 Main St. site for about 90 days after its owners suggested they wanted to sell. Rawlings said the city made its $485,000 offer after hiring an independent appraiser to determine its value.

City officials and business leaders said that if the city did not buy the building, it ran the risk that another owner could throw a monkey wrench into the city's redevelopment desires.

They said a new owner could throw out the art gallery and business association and lease the site to businesses the city wouldn't want.

Jim Baumann, president and chief executive officer of the Chamber of Commerce, said the city would not want an "overabundance of 99-cent stores and check-cashing places" in the downtown core.

Baumann was one of several business leaders who spoke in favor of the purchase Tuesday night.

Some speakers, however, said they were concerned.

Chuck Rabel, who is running for a City Council seat, said Vista's redevelopment agency did not have a good reputation for buying and successfully running properties in the past.

Gronke said he also worried about the city buying properties, but that he supported the moves.

"I'm somewhat concerned about the city taking on properties," he said, "but this is a major location."

Lopez said it was important for the city to control the downtown area, particularly because of the new Sprinter rail line that stops right at the nearby Krikorian multiplex.

"We have to think about the businesses we develop along the sprinter line," Lopez said. "Businesses that people can get off the Sprinter and walk to."

Rawlings said that if the purchase went through, the city might eventually try to move the Santa Fe Depot to another spot downtown near the Sprinter rail line.

-- Contact staff writer Gig Conaughton at (760) 901-4076 or gconaughton@nctimes.com.

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