Almost $17 million allocated last week will advance two, long-awaited Oceanside projects — a new community park at El Corazon and additional flood control measures on the San Luis Rey River.
The Oceanside City Council unanimously agreed to take money from the city’s general fund surplus, the result of several straight years of operating in the black and a healthy five-year financial forecast.
The city expects a surplus of $3.8 million for fiscal year 2025-26, based on projected revenues of $231.18 million and expenditures of $227.38, according to a staff report.
“Things are trending in a positive direction,” said City Manager Jonathan Borrego. The city has made significant headway in catching up on payments to the public employee retirement system, or PERS, and has money to direct to other long-term needs.
Half of the surplus, or $8.25 million, will be used to build what’s known as Park Site 1 in the city’s sprawling El Corazon property east of El Camino Real and just north of Oceanside Boulevard.
Park Site 1 is about 17 acres near the entrance to the Frontwave Arena, where the city plans to build community ballfields, picnic areas, restrooms, parking and more.
“We are looking to complete the design by the summer of this year,” said Kymberly Corbin, the city’s project manager.
Soil remediation is needed first because the El Corazon property is a former open-pit sand mine. That work will start later this year and should be finished in time to start the park’s construction by the end of 2026, Corbin said.
“We couldn’t be happier,” said Joan Bockman of the Friends of El Corazon. “It’s been a long time coming.”
Plans for the community park have been underway since about 2000. Since then, the city has built a senior center and an aquatics center at El Corazon, and private developers have built the sports arena, a soccer complex, and hundreds of apartments there.
City policy requires 50% of the general fund surplus be dedicated to unfunded liabilities. As a result, half the money allocated Wednesday, or $8.25 million, will be used as matching funds to help complete the decades-old U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ San Luis Rey River flood control project.
“The Army Corps of Engineers is doing a survey of the levee system,” Borrego said. “That is a big milestone. Once that is done, it will inform the final costs of upgrading the levee system.”
An October 2024 estimate by the Corps placed the total cost of the flood control project at $230 million. About $127 million of that had been paid at the time.
Oceanside pays 25% of the costs, or a little less than $58 million under the most recent estimate. So far, the city has paid almost half of that. The federal government is responsible for the rest of the money, doled out in congressional appropriations.
Authorized by Congress in 1970, the project is intended to clear sediment, debris and vegetation from hundreds of acres in the river channel and to armor sections of the riverbed with concrete and rock walls or levees. Construction began in 1990, and the levees that line parts of the channel were finished in 2000.
Both the park and flood control are important, but other long-term projects also need funding, Mayor Esther Sanchez said.
One is the replacement of the nearly 100-year-old concrete approach bridge to the Oceanside pier, she said. Preliminary plans for that and other aging beachfront properties, including the amphitheater and the Junior Seau Community Center, have been underway for years.
Construction of the new pier bridge, along with the lifeguard headquarters beneath it, was recently estimated at more than $40 million.
The council agreed to hold a public workshop later this year to discuss the priorities for additional capital improvement projects.
