from OsideNews.com

Tri-City Corporate Towers In Oceanside

For the first time in over 130 years, Oceanside will not be home to a newspaper office.

At the end of this month, the Union-Tribune is moving out of its leased headquarters in Oceanside and moving into a space in San Marcos.

According to U-T staffers, the move to San Marcos is due to the fact that the U-T still honors a long-term lease in San Marcos that was signed by previous owners Platinum Equity.

Until March, the U-T is occupying the entire third floor of Pacific Gateway Towers, a four-story professional and medical building at 3156 East Vista Way. Cushman & Wakefield is looking for tenants for the 8783 sq. ft. space, asking $1.95 per square foot.

Pacific Gateway Towers, previously called Tri-City Corporate Towers, is actually two identical buildings on the north side of SR-79 near El Camino Real. The U-T has been housed in the east building for three years.

Tom Missett, former publisher of the Oceanside Blade-Tribune and Blade-Citizen newspapers, says there has been a newspaper office in Oceanside since at least the early 1900s.

The old Blade-Tribune office moved from First Street in Oceanside to Hill Street (Coast Highway) in South Oceanside in the ‘60s. That South Oceanside building housed the Blade-Tribune, which became the larger Blade-Citizen in the '80s.

When the Escondido Times-Advocate and the Oceanside Blade-Citizen merged to create the North County Times in 1995, the new paper retained offices in Escondido and Oceanside.

When the U-T purchased the North County Times in 2012, the Escondido and Oceanside buildings were sold. Current U-T reporter Adrian Vore, who was previously a North County U-T news editor, says there was a short time after the old Blade-Citizen offices were sold in 2012 that the U-T maintained an Oceanside office in its longtime satellite office on Coast Highway near Wisconsin Street; then the U-T moved to its current Oceanside office.

Missett says the Blade-Tribune was created when three papers, The Oceanside Blade, the Oceanside News, and the Oceanside Tribune were purchased and combined in 1929.

Oceanside historian Kristi Hawthorne says Oceanside had newspapers long before that. She says there was once a South Oceanside Diamond (est. 1888), which was predated by three years by the San Luis Rey Star (which became the Oceanside Star).

“It doesn’t surprise they’ve given up on Oceanside,” says former Blade-Citizen publisher Tom Missett about the Union-Tribune. “If you ask me, there hasn’t been a newspaper in Oceanside since Bill Missett left.”

Publisher Tom hired his older brother Bill as editor, who held that position for 30 years. Bill left the Blade-Citizen in 1997 and now lives in Mexico.

Jeff Light, Union-Tribune vice president and editor, says that in addition to the new San Marcos editorial offices, the paper will maintain a small satellite news office in Escondido.

Tri-City Corporate Towers, which overlooks the El Camino Country Club and golf course, was sold in September 2014 by a trust controlled by Katherine Issa (wife of congressman Darrell Issa) for $5.6 million.

Pacific Gateway is now owned by a group called IPF Tri-City, a group headed by Lawrence S. Jackel. This is not the only famous enterprise to leave that part of Oceanside. Two years ago the Hooters restaurant two doors down closed.