A few more big plays are needed before Oceanside lands its first professional sports team, say city officials working on the deal.

San Diego 1904 FC, the county’s newly formed and numerically named pro soccer club, announced at a news conference Wednesday that it plans to build a 10,000-seat stadium in time to open for the 2019 season on the eastern edge of the SoCal Sports Complex at Oceanside’s El Corazon property.

That sounds like a tough sprint to the goal to some people.

“We are excited by the unbridled enthusiasm of 1904FC, but there is a process to follow,” said Joan Bockman, president of the Friends of El Corazon, a nonprofit group of residents working for the park’s long-term viability.


Members of the group look forward to reviewing a plan for the stadium, she said, but so far few details have been presented.

“It’s a great idea,” said Peter Weiss, a former Oceanside city manager and now a part-time consultant for the city.

But so far, the soccer club has not submitted any application to the city, or to Sudberry Properties, the company that controls the development at El Corazon.

“They are going to need what we call a development plan,” Weiss said. “They need to prepare all the necessary studies … traffic, biology, sewer, water and so on.”


Obtaining all the necessary studies and approvals takes at least seven months and probably nine, if all goes well, he said. It can take a lot longer if residents or any of the many agencies involved raise objections over things such as traffic or noise.

“It’s do-able,” said Councilman Jerry Kern, who said he’s been working for months to line up the deal. “The stadium can be built in 120 days.”

Kern emphasized that the city offered no financial incentives to get the team, which he said has a huge economic upside for Oceanside.

“There are no taxpayer dollars involved in this,” he said, adding that soccer fans will come from all over the county.


“You are probably going to have 8,000 to 10,000 people coming into town (for games), shopping, going to restaurants, going to the beach,” Kern said.

Oceanside was chosen for the stadium because of numerous advantages over other sites that were considered in Escondido, Del Mar, Poway, Imperial Beach and Chula Vista, soccer club President Bob Watkins said at the news conference.

“We were the ideal location,” Kern said. “We have the soccer fields there, the parking, accessibility … and everything else.”

None of the existing 22 soccer fields at the sports complex would be lost to the stadium, Visit Oceanside President and CEO Leslee Gaul said Friday. As the city’s marketing arm, Visit Oceanside works with SoCal Sports on branding and promotion for the soccer fields.


“There are some things that still need to be worked out, but potentially it could be really good,” Gaul said. “It does not impact the fields that are out there, and the two (the stadium and the sports complex) can work together.”

About three miles east of Interstate 5, the 465-acre El Corazon property at Oceanside Boulevard and El Camino Real was used as a sand mine for 60 years before it was turned over to the city in 1994. Part of the property has been leased for a regional composting facility since 1995. A master plan approved for the site outlines a mixture of recreational, residential and commercial uses, most of which are still in the planning stages.

Construction of the soccer stadium could help kick-start work on more of the facilities that have long been planned but not yet built there, Gaul said.

The senior center there opened in 2009 and occupies about six acres. The multi-use fields of the SoCal Sports Complex opened in August 2014, and the complex hosts about a dozen regional or national soccer and lacrosse tournaments a year. Plans to build a $15 million aquatics center are nearly complete, though the City Council decided earlier this year not to proceed until a source is locked on to cover the expected $1 million in annual maintenance costs.


The proposed stadium would be built away from the El Corazon site in modules that would be assembled in place in Oceanside, along with permanent restrooms and concession stands, over about four months beginning next September. The existing multipurpose fields have temporary bleachers and portable toilets.

For now, the newly formed 1904 FC team has signed up to play the 2018 season at the University of San Diego’s Torero Stadium.

Some people have expressed doubts about the team’s long-term viability. The team is in litigation to retain its second-degree status within the North American Soccer League.

Kern said that whatever the outcome of the lawsuit, professional soccer could have a bright future in Oceanside.


“Just look at the demographics and what’s happening nationwide,” he said. “Soccer is probably the fastest-growing sport in the nation. There are 400,000 boys that play, and probably as many girls.”

The sport is more popular than baseball or basketball with young people, and its especially popular with young Latinos, he said.

“You have a population that is eventually going to support soccer their whole lives,” Kern said.

The new soccer stadium would bring a number of benefits to Oceanside, both tangible and intangible, he said.


“It does put you on the map as far as a soccer destination,” he said.

And in addition to the economic benefits, he added, professional sports clubs usually have youth development programs for school-age children throughout the region.

It’s not the first time Oceanside has courted a professional sports team.

City officials talked with representatives of the San Diego Chargers about moving from Mission Valley to the Center City Golf Course site along Interstate 5 in 2007. Then, in 2009, they considered the old Valley Drive-In theater and swap-meet property along Mission Avenue in the San Luis Rey River Valley. Neither offer worked out, and eventually the Chargers went to Los Angeles.


philip.diehl@sduniontribune.com


Twitter: @phildiehl