VISTA -- The city's long-running plan to revitalize the South Santa Fe Avenue corridor is still in the pipeline, city officials said last week, but issues with a flood plain in the project area have created a hiccup that engineers are still trying to resolve.

Three years after the city began working on plans to revamp the blighted commercial district, little has changed along the busy downtown corridor that is peppered with auto-repair shops, liquor stores and a huge lumber yard.

The city dreams of making the area a pedestrian showpiece with retail stores, restaurants and offices, as well as with town homes and other residential spaces. City staffers have said it takes time to lay the proper groundwork for such an ambitious project.

However, in recent weeks, City Council candidates have begun to criticize the sluggish pace of redevelopment along South Santa Fe.

Aspiring council member Michael Dinnel has complained that thousands of dollars have been spent on consultants with no infrastructure improvements to show for it.

Another candidate, Nick Ashcraft, has proclaimed that "all of our redevelopment is stalled."

City officials dispute that characterization but acknowledge that there have been complications in planning the Santa Fe project, most notably involving the flood plain.

"It has been the one big hurdle in our process," said Robin Putnam, the city's community development director. "It's a complicated engineering project to solve, so that's why there's been a little delay."

So far, the city has spent more than $400,000 on consultants for the corridor's overall redevelopment, and dedicated substantial of staff time, Putnam said.

Jim Baumann, chief executive officer of the Chamber of Commerce, gave this interpretation: "I think that once they started, they found out it was going to be more difficult than anyone thought. … But these things are never going to be developed overnight."

The flood-plain blues

One of the city's oldest business districts, the South Santa Fe Avenue corridor runs for approximately one mile, from an area north of Vista Village Drive to a few blocks south of Escondido Avenue. The project area also includes Mercantile Street, which parallels South Santa Fe.

Vista's long-range vision is to revamp the strip with retail shops and restaurants topped by for-sale living spaces. But before that can happen, the area's flooding issues need to be resolved.

About 60 percent to 70 percent of the corridor is within the federally defined 100-year flood plain, meaning there's a 1 percent chance those areas will flood in any given year, Putnam said.

She said the city initially thought it would solve the flood-plain issue by installing a storm-drain system -- until an estimate showed several months ago that such a system would cost $30 million, far beyond the city's means.

Vista's redevelopment agency has about $10 million in bonding capacity and owes the city's general fund about $18 million, city officials said.

"When we realized how expensive the storm drain system was, we started looking at options of addressing the flood plain in a different way," Putnam said.

While construction in a flood plain generally isn't prohibited, any new project would have to meet flood-protection standards. New buildings would have to be raised at least 1 foot higher than the base flood level, which, along some parts of South Santa Fe, could add several feet of elevation, Putnam said.

In March, the city began looking into the feasibility of requiring new buildings along the corridor to have higher ground floors. By June, however, officials decided that option wouldn't work for a pedestrian district.

"Our economic consultant (for the Santa Fe project) took a look at that and said 'it's just not marketable,' " Putnam said.

Once you separate buildings from the sidewalk, you risk losing the all-important "Main Street" feel, she added.

Because the private sector is ultimately expected to drive the South Santa Fe revitalization, there was also concern that adding building constraints would deter interest from developers.

"You can physically do it, but it's not going to work," Putnam said.

A fresh set of eyes

City officials said they are now hoping that Tory Walker, a local water resources consultant, will provide the magic bullet for the flood-plain problem or, at the very least, tweak the playing field.

In late summer, Vista commissioned Walker to conduct his own flood-plain analysis and to gauge the accuracy of the federal map that defines the boundaries of the flood plain.

Walker will also look at public improvements that could resolve or eliminate the flood plain's effect on South Santa Fe, according to Kevin Ham, the city's acting redevelopment director.

"Part of the study that we're doing right now is to see if there are things we can do with the existing drainage system to make it more efficient," Walker said in an interview this month.

Improvements could include diverting more water underground or creating bulges in the creek system to accommodate temporary expansion, he said.

Ultimately, the city hopes to use Walker's findings to revise the federally defined flood-plain boundaries.

Putnam said she went over preliminary findings with Walker last month, and said she's confident he will find alternatives to a costly storm-drain system.

"Within eight months, the city will have the new flood plain identified to an adequate level of detail so that the financial analysis of the (corridor design alternatives) can be reviewed again," she wrote in a memo to city officials earlier this month.

Walker declined to predict what his recommendations might be.

"It looks like we can do something," he said. "It remains to be seen how much."

Next steps

Once the City Council finalizes the corridor's design parameters, staffers can get to work on the environmental documents as well as a detailed blueprint for the area, called a specific plan. Having all the documents in place will expedite the approval process will for developers seeking to build along the corridor, Putnam said.

Chuck Rabel, a former Chamber of Commerce president who has been critical about the city's approach to redevelopment, said the city still hasn't done enough on the South Santa Fe plan.

"They're way past due in changing the zoning," Rabel said. That's important because, "without question the private sector is going to have to (drive redevelopment)."

The city's redevelopment agency will be responsible for infrastructure improvements along South Santa Fe, but it will be a few years before that work gets under way, Putnam said

In the meantime, some larger projects are moving ahead.

One of these is an affordable senior housing complex on a long strip of land on North Santa Fe Avenue, between West Orange Street and Vista Village Drive. Another is the residential-and-retail project planned for the corner of South Santa Fe Avenue and Vista Village Drive.

That 1.25-acre area has been dubbed a "demonstration block" by the city. Officials have said the finished project will hopefully prompt other developers to follow suit in the South Santa Fe Avenue corridor.

Plans for both projects should appear before the City Council in December or January, Putnam said.

"Over time the South Santa Fe corridor will have its day," Councilman Bob Campbell said. "It's just a matter of when that is."

Contact staff writer Craig TenBroeck at (760) 631-6621 or ctenbroeck@nctimes.com.

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