Lot by Oceanside High School to get 8-story building with 273 apartments

The Oceanside City Council approved an eight-story, mixed-use development with 273 apartments and 4,000 square feet of ground-floor retail shops Wednesday for a vacant lot on Mission Avenue just west of Oceanside High School.

The only no vote came from Councilmember Eric Joyce. He said he had concerns about how the building’s traffic would affect the safety of students going to and from the school, and about the upper-floor apartments with windows looking down onto the campus.

“The safety of the students is my No. 1 concern with this project,” Joyce said.

Mayor Esther Sanchez supported the development.

Taller buildings bring “more eyes on the street,” Sanchez said, and are safer because there are more people to see and report problems.

She praised the developer for including a four-level parking garage with 322 spaces, including 22 spaces for commercial activities, five for a leasing office and one for U.S. Postal Service vehicles.

Other downtown buildings have less parking, she said. The Mission Avenue location is within a half-mile of the Oceanside Transit Center and qualifies as a transit-oriented development. Because of that, state law does not require it to have any on-site parking.

The building will have 54 studio apartments with 479 square feet each, 142 one-bedroom units ranging from 609 to 863 square feet each, and 77 two-bedroom units, each with 1,052 to 1,156 square feet.

An outdoor swimming pool, spa, fire pits and grills will be located on the third floor between two taller sections of the building, according to plans submitted to the city.

JPI Real Estate Acquisition, the developer, is a national company with one other large project underway near the Crouch Street Sprinter Station in Oceanside.

Construction of the transit-oriented, mixed-use development with 295 apartments in five, four-story buildings began in August 2024.

Colin Hofman, director of development at JPI West, said the Crouch Street project is on track for completion in 2026.

The 1.5-acre Mission Avenue lot has been vacant for more than 35 years.

The City Council approved a previous mixed-use project, called the Belvedere, for the site in 2012.

The Belvedere was to have about 120 hotel rooms, 90 live-work units, and a little more than 8,000 square feet of commercial space. That developer, the Amidi Real Estate Group, had difficulty obtaining construction financing and failed to break ground.

A previous unsuccessful mixed-use project that another developer proposed for the site would have included 66 condominiums, 51 live-work apartments and more than 26,000 square feet of commercial space.

Three other large mixed-use developments are pending for the Mission Avenue corridor west of Interstate 5.

On Oct. 1, the City Council unanimously approved a seven-story building with 326 apartments, retail stores and restaurants to replace the 2.7-acre Regal Cinema complex at the corner of Mission Avenue and South Coast Highway.

Two other projects are planned on the north and south sides of the 800 block of Mission Avenue just west of the RDI project in the 900 block.

A seven-story, mixed-use project with 206 apartments is proposed for the current location of the North County Transit District headquarters at 810 Mission Ave. That plan would proceed only with the pending redevelopment of the downtown Oceanside Transit Center, which would include a new NCTD office building.

Also under review is another seven-story, mixed-use project directly across the street at 801 Mission Ave. That project would include 230 apartments and ground-floor retail shops or restaurants.

Each of the developments is required to designate at least 10% of its residential units as restricted affordable housing.

Several other six- and seven-story projects, including two beach resort hotels and one oceanfront time-share building, have been built west of South Coast Highway. All were part of the city’s long-term redevelopment plans.