Category: Ocean Beach

Billionaire Stan Kroenke Is Starting with a 7-Story 223-Unit Project at Former Perry’s Cafe

By Dorian Hargrove and Andrew Keatts / Times of San Diego / Oct. 16, 2026

Billionaire Stan Kroenke, the nation’s largest landowner and professional sports team mogul, is looking to transform the Midway District.

And he’s not stopping at Midway Rising, the megaproject to redevelop the city-owned Pechanga Arena property that is on its way to a City Council vote.

His development team is nearing completion just under a mile away, across from the Old Town Transit Center, on a seven-story, 223-unit housing project.

That tower is at the site of the former Perry’s Cafe, a once-popular greasy spoon diner on the edge of Old Town. It is now the first piece of the puzzle for Kroenke’s Midway vision.

From Point Loma Association Newsletter

This morning, Tuesday, a Rag reader was leaving one of the local dog parks and saw these signs posted illegally on Nimitz by the dog park in the OB / Point Loma area.

The signs clearly state that “Nicole Crosby stands with MAYOR TODD GLORIA.” The small print says they’ve been paid for by the Lincoln Club Business League PAC.

Why would someone place them on the sides of local roads? Who benefits? It’s not Gloria’s supporters so it must be Crosby’s opponent in the campaign for the District 2 city council seat, Richard Bailey — or else his supporters, like the Lincoln Club. He can claim denial. They can claim they didn’t put them on the side of the road.

Manchester Group Considering 400-Megawatt Data Center as Part of Navy’s Redevelopment

By Andrew Bowen / KPBS /  Oct. 16, 2026 

Rep. Scott Peters on Friday said he is opposed to the concept of building a data center at the Navy’s NAVWAR campus in San Diego’s Midway District.

For more than two years, the Navy has been in talks with Manchester Financial Group and Edgemoor Infrastructure & Real Estate on redeveloping the site, which sits on 70 acres between Pacific Highway and Interstate 5. It currently houses the Navy’s cybersecurity operations.

On Thursday, Voice of San Diego reported the development team was considering a 400-megawatt data center as part of the redevelopment.

Speaking at a press conference Friday, Peters said the site’s location near downtown, I-5 and the Old Town Transit Center make it an ideal location for housing and neighborhood-serving amenities. Peters is a Democrat whose 50th District includes NAVWAR.

By Debbie L. Sklar

When Ocean Beach’s first school opened in 1909, the seaside community had about 100 residences. The modest two-room schoolhouse gave local children a place to learn as the neighborhood developed from a small settlement into a residential community.

Its early history includes a graduating class of one, a future neighborhood librarian, and a building renovated after a major earthquake.

Here are six details about the school’s beginnings and its place in Ocean Beach history.

1. D.C. Collier built the school

Developer David Charles Collier, commonly known as D.C. Collier, bought the land and built Ocean Beach Elementary School in 1909. Collier was a major figure in the community’s early development, promoting residential growth and helping establish transportation connections. (Editordude: actually Collier is “the Father of Ocean Beach.”) The school was part of the infrastructure needed to support families settling in the neighborhood.

According to the City of San Diego’s historical-planning documents, D.C. Collier’s original two-room schoolhouse was located at the corner of Santa Monica Avenue and Sunset Cliffs Boulevard in Ocean Beach. The original building was demolished in 1923 and replaced by the current Ocean Beach Elementary School on the same site, at 4741 Santa Monica Ave., San Diego, CA 92107.

By Bill Eddy

Given the intense efforts by President Trump to disrupt the election process, it is not surprising that there is fear in the air that he will find a way to instigate violence and chaos on election day, November 3rd. After all, on February 3rd former Trump election adviser and conservative podcaster, Steve Bannon, said: “We’re going to have ICE surround the polls come November. We’re not going to sit here and allow you to steal the country again.” The next day Bannon suggested that Trump should also call in the U.S. Army. He said: “You’ve got to get around every poll and make sure only people with IDs, people … actually registered to vote and people that are United States citizens vote in this election.”

Later, Todd Blanche, when he was the deputy attorney general, said: “Why are there objections to sending ICE officers to polling places? Illegals can’t vote.” In May, 2026, Trump said he would do “anything necessary to make sure we have honest elections; we have to have honest elections.” This is surely a threat for a power grab as a great deal of research shows that election fraud is nearly non-existent—less than 0.0001 percent. The elections will be honest unless he disrupts them.

Trump’s voting restriction setbacks

A lot has happened since May. His efforts to get the Senate to pass the “SAVE America Act”—a nationwide law with many voting restrictions—has been permanently stalled in the Senate because of Democratic opposition and the filibuster (requiring 60 votes to pass).

In July he gave a primetime address to the nation warning of “shocking vulnerabilities in our election infrastructure” and “China’s illicit acquisition of 220 million US voter files.” Yet he provided no credible evidence in support of his false claims and his disapproval ratings continued to tank.

In September, the U. S. Supreme Court denied his efforts to block mail-in voting. He then reversed his long-standing opposition and told Republicans: “Vote early, vote by mail, or vote in person on Election Day.”

By Scott Lewis / Voice of San Diego / October 17, 2026

Friday, October 16 a committee of the San Diego City Council advanced the project that Midway Rising leaders have been working on for five years.

It was a moment that had been building for years. Union members who have advocated for it every step of the way cheered loudly in the City Council Chambers. But the Midway Rising hurried out and issued a simple written statement attributed to Brad Termini, from Zephyr Partners.

“We’re honored to receive a unanimous 4-0 vote in support of Midway Rising from the City’s Land Use and Housing Committee and look forward to presenting this transformational project to the full City Council in the weeks ahead,” Termini wrote.

They may be “honored” but, by several accounts, they were not pleased at all.

The committee advanced their deal with one significant amendment: It would require the Midway Rising team to ensure the affordable housing units built at the site are “net-new” – a reference to what we wrote about Friday. We revealed that city staff had preferred the deal prohibit the property from becoming a so-called “receiver site” for the affordable housing other developers in San Diego were going to have to deliver anyway.

By: Dani Miskell / 10News / Oct. 15, 2026

U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff visited Point Loma High School on Thursday, October 15, to discuss how immigration enforcement has impacted San Diego schools.

The visit marked the first time in 13 years that a U.S. senator visited a school in the San Diego Unified School District, according to the district. Former Sen. Barbara Boxer last visited a district school when she stopped at an elementary school in Barrio Logan.

About 100 juniors and seniors had the opportunity to meet with Schiff and ask questions, including about U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations near schools.

Although no incidents of parents being detained near Point Loma High School have been reported, similar concerns have surfaced elsewhere in the district.

Check out this short video by OBcean Phil Rockhold of the “No Kings” event in Ocean Beach on Saturday, October 17th.

By Michael Hernandez

It was a night like any other for Ocean Beach resident Scott Martinez, who says he was playing Scrabble in the garage of his next-door neighbor in the 4600 block of Del Mar Avenue when another neighbor popped in with news that left their jaws on the floor. A single-family home in the neighborhood was put up for sale, with a proposal for the construction of a 12-unit ADU “farm” in the backyard. Almost immediately, neighbors began to organize, and Scott found himself swept up in the fight to stop the project in its tracks.

The property at the center of this issue is 4637 Del Mar Avenue. Neighbors say the house used to belong to an elderly woman who lived there for decades. After her death, her children sold the house, and up until recently, it was listed as a short-term rental. However, neighbors allege the property may not have had the proper notices required by the City of San Diego for Airbnbs and other short-term rentals.

Melissa Scherer, another neighborhood resident who has lived on the block for about four years now, is deeply involved in the fight against the potential ADU farm. She recounts how early one Sunday morning in September, a maintenance crew arrived and began to do some work on the lawn and the house. By that afternoon, the crew was installing the frame for a real estate sign.

By Debbie L. Sklar / Special to the OB Rag

A December 1928 photograph captures the Strand Theatre on Newport Avenue when it was only about 3 years old, its Mission Revival architecture standing prominently along one of Ocean Beach’s emerging commercial streets.

The theater opened Nov. 6, 1925, replacing the earlier Ocean Theatre and giving the growing beach community a larger movie house. According to the city of San Diego’s Ocean Beach Community Plan, The Strand became an important neighborhood landmark and helped spur development along Newport Avenue. The building was designated Historic Resource Site No. 561 on Dec. 20, 2002.

The Strand arrived at an interesting moment in American entertainment. Movies were evolving rapidly, and theaters were becoming gathering places as well as destinations for the latest films. The Strand served children and adults, with Saturday serials for younger audiences and new movies for evening crowds. A plaque on the building recalls the weekly screenings and the black-and-white sundaes sold at the neighboring Strand Sweet Shop.

For generations of Ocean Beach residents, The Strand was much more than a neighborhood movie theater. By the late 1970s, it had developed a following for its eclectic programming, including Friday and Saturday night screenings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. It also showed films such as Woodstock, The Endless Summer, Gimme Shelter and Rust Never Sleeps, according to OB Rag’s retrospective on the theater.