Home Care In El Cajon, CA

City leaders in El Cajon are weighing options — including eminent domain and partial ownership — to prevent Parkway Plaza from becoming a dead mall.

The City Council last week was presented with an analysis of options to potentially acquire, control or influence the owners of Parkway Plaza, an 80-acre site at the interchange of Interstate 8 and Highway 67. The city has not announced a formal appraisal of the site, but a 2021 market analysis estimated the shopping center’s value at about $150 million.

A once-thriving commercial and social hub, the mall was one of the city’s top tax revenue sources during its heyday.

Officials recently revived a stalled plan to potentially redevelop the mall, citing concerns for its long-term viability and the revenue hit the city could face if it fails. Revitalization of the mall could increase the city’s annual revenues by at least $10 million, according to an earlier report by Hunden Partners.

“It’s hard to have these conversations with the development community because we have no control,” City Manager Graham Mitchell said.

Central to the issue is Parkway Plaza’s complicated ownership structure.

For decades, the shopping center was separated into different parcels, each with different owners. For instance, Sears and Macy’s each owned plots at opposite ends of the mall, while — for many years — Westfield Group owned the mall’s central parcel and commercial strip center until selling the properties to Starwood Capital Group in 2013.

The group subsequently lost control and ownership of the property in 2020, following a series of tumultuous financial transactions, resulting in “significant” unsecured debt on the property, according to deed records and a staff report.

Golden East Investors and Pacific Retail Capital Partners were selected by court-appointed trustees to restructure ownership of the properties, but what’s left is a complex debt arrangement with repayment requirements that continue to “challenge the property,” Mitchell said.

The city’s efforts to revitalize the mall kicked into gear about two years ago when Walmart, a Parkway Plaza anchor tenant, announced it would not renew its lease, further amplifying concerns surrounding the outstanding debt.

“Most property owners have a vested interest to see the long-term growth of their property,” Mitchell said. “A trustee does not have that motive; their motive is either to fill it with as many tenants as it possibly can, to become profitable to sell it for as much as it can, or just to pay off its debt.”

As it stands, the mall’s ownership is split into four parcels, each owned by a different trustee. The left portion of the mall, which includes a large chunk of parking spaces and a recently added Kid’s Empire indoor playground, is owned by Citivest.

The central portion of Parkway Plaza is owned by Starwood Capital Group, which includes tenants such as JCPenney, Dick’s Sporting Goods and the shuttered Walmart storefront.

Tourmaline Capital owns the mall’s rightmost portion, which includes Macy’s.

Most recently, the adjacent “power center” portion of the mall sold for $31.5 million to the Tabani Group, a Texas-based real estate firm.

Officials were presented with the city’s options for potential acquisition or control of the property, ranging from a development agreement, a long-term ground lease agreement, partial ownership to acquisition of the entire mall space.

Their options were ranked by monetary risk and the resulting levels of control each would provide.

The highest-risk choice is eminent domain, where the city seizes the property. But that route comes with significant challenges, Mitchell said, noting it would cost more than a voluntary acquisition and could involve a yearslong court battle.

“There are reasons why municipal governments are not the best suited to own and manage real estate,” a staff report reads. “Typically, the private sector is more effective, efficient, and unhampered by governmental regulations.”

The most prominent example of the use of eminent domain in the region is the city of San Diego’s use of condemnation powers to build Horton Plaza. In 2022, the San Diego City Council used eminent domain against Fashion Valley Mall to acquire private retail land for a water pipeline extension project.

Councilmember Phil Ortiz described El Cajon’s situation as “extraordinarily complex,” noting the city’s role is to bring together developers, stakeholders and the community to find the solution.

“We have to show the development community that it’s one of our highest priorities to see Parkway Plaza at its highest and best use, and that we as a city council are willing and ready to engage, make investments and make concessions.”

Councilmember Michelle Metschel said she wants the city to continue engaging with the mall’s ownership, but said she preferred a partnership that is “low risk to the city.”

Noting other city-owned assets that have become “somewhat troublesome,” Metschel said she preferred avoiding going down the acquisition route. “We shouldn’t be in the mall business,” she continued.

Advancing the overhaul plan could also motivate the current owners to further their own revitalization efforts, Mayor Bill Wells said in an interview.

The city is hosting a town hall meeting at the Ronald Reagan Community Center on Oct. 1 to share preliminary site concepts and gather input from the community.

Officials continue to develop their land-use plan and hold closed-door negotiations with the mall’s ownership, leaving the fate of the once-thriving commercial hub up in the air.

“I’m mostly interested in strategies to be successful, which I think might be better as a closed session discussion, so I’ll leave it at that,” Wells said.

El Cajon is reviving a stalled plan to acquire and redevelop Parkway Plaza, citing concerns for the mall’s long-term survival and the revenue hit the city faces if it fails.

“I can’t think of many more economic issues that are more vital to us than a healthy Parkway Plaza,” El Cajon Mayor Bill Wells said. “I’ve been excited by the options that staff has given us and the vision of the future, but it seems to me like we’re stalled out on that process.”

During a July 28 meeting, the El Cajon City Council directed staff to return with an analysis of potential options to acquire Parkway Plaza.

A once-thriving commercial and social hub, the mall was one of the city’s top tax revenue sources during its heyday.

Late last year, city officials announced their plan to possibly secure ownership of the shopping center, noting concerns over shifts in ownership and major roadblocks in their redevelopment efforts without having an ownership stake. They aim to transform the space by turning it into a mixed-use site for shopping, housing, social gathering and transit access.

Positioned on an 80-acre plot, Parkway Plaza is the city’s largest shopping center. The mall opened in 1972 and has recently seen a shift in ownership.

Starwood Capital Group lost ownership of Parkway Plaza in 2020 after defaulting on Israeli-held bonds. It was then acquired by the current owners, Pacific Retail Capital partners and Golden East Investors.

“I think we’re being, in a way, held hostage by owners and I’d like to see what we can do to revitalize Parkway Plaza and bring it back to… a viable economic area,” said Deputy Mayor Michelle Metschel, who initiated the staff recommendation alongside Wells.

In March, city officials advanced several efforts related to the potential acquisition, including securing a land-use planning grant and hiring a consulting firm to explore funding options.

The city has not announced a formal appraisal of the site, but a 2021 market analysis estimated the shopping center’s value at about $150 million. Revitalization of the mall could be expected to increase the city’s annual revenues by at least $10 million, according to an earlier report by Hunden Partners.

The process became stalled in recent months, city leaders said, though some meetings took place between the city and the mall ownership in closed session.

“If we don’t do anything we could see six…eight more months go by without any significant movement and I don’t want this to drag out for years,” Wells said in an interview with The San Diego Union-Tribune.

If action isn’t taken soon to revitalize the mall, Wells said, “it will fail eventually.” Further, he said the shopping center’s decline would cause “significant” revenue problems for the city, noting concern that the area would become “a center for homelessness.”

“I’ve been in office for 20 years, and I’ve never pulled the trigger on something like this because I don’t like the idea of it … but we have to be proactive,” Wells continued.

He described the potential acquisition as an act of “eminent domain” that is vital to the city’s long-term economic survival.

In part, advancing the overhaul plan could also motivate the current owners to further their own revitalization efforts, officials said.

Retail Insights, a commercial real estate firm marketing leases at Parkway Plaza, said Kids Empire and Skyzone recently signed on as new tenants.

“The presence of those national brands certainly will make Parkway Plaza attractive to others (businesses) as well,” Councilmember Steve Goble said.

City staff will return to the council with an update on the acquisition efforts, particularly from a land-use perspective, City Manager Graham Mitchell said, noting that specific redevelopment ideas should be put on pause until the city has ownership stake.

“It may not be the same type of mall that we are used to, but I think that it can be more,” Metschel said.

An almost one acre vegetation fire was contained by firefighting crews Saturday in the area of Old Bend Road and La Cresta Road in El Cajon, according to an X post by San Diego Sheriff.

The X post said there will be increased law enforcement and firefighting activity in the community of La Cresta.

#ForesterFire If you live in the community of La Cresta, be aware of increased law enforcement and firefighting activity. A brush fire is burning near La Cresta Road and Old Bend Road.An EVACUATION WARNING is in place for the shaded area in yellow shown in the map below. Be… pic.twitter.com/YRIN4tk8aW

— San Diego Sheriff (@SDSheriff) September 26, 2026

A temporary evacuation warning was issued and marked the evacuation point to Granite Hills High School, 1719 E Madison Avenue. This was lifted around 1 p.m. according to an X post by SD Sheriff.

#UPDATE Due to improved containment, @SDSheriff is lifting the EVACUATION WARNING for the #ForesterFire in La Cresta.For those returning home, please be mindful of firefighters who are still working in the area. We want to thank the public for their cooperation.… https://t.co/qwL6BJot3O

— San Diego Sheriff (@SDSheriff) September 26, 2026

The evacuation warning was placed for Zones SDC-1855, SDC-1856, SDC-1858, and SDC-1859, outlined in a map by Genasys Protect and linked on an SD Sheriff's X post.

Firefighters responded to a fire in the Granite Hills area of unincorporated El Cajon that broke out at about 11:40 a.m. Saturday at the eastern end of Forester Creek Road near La Cresta Road.

No structures were damaged and no injuries were reported.

Aerial support and some ground units had been released from the fire by 1 p.m., fire officials said.

This is a developing story, details may change. Check back for updates.

Property owners in downtown El Cajon have been paying a special tax to promote the struggling central business district for decades. For nearly as long, oversight of that funding has been less than stringent.

Now, if the El Cajon City Council gets its way, the assessment district boundaries will be expanded and the taxes paid by downtown property owners will grow by hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

Over the next two decades, central city landowners would be charged at least $16 million — not including tax increases that could be imposed every year without council approval.

According to El Cajon, the city plays no role in determining how the special taxes are spent. Rather, city officials say, an independent governing board is responsible for making sure that the revenue is properly invested.

The existing special district, called the Downtown El Cajon Business Partners, is a nonprofit organization that raises and spends more than $500,000 a year — totaling millions of dollars since it was incorporated in 2011.

When it was created, the so-called property and business improvement district, or PBID, was limited to 15 years.

With the organization now set to expire at the end of this year, city officials are planning a broader assessment district that will affect even more property owners — and generate millions of new dollars for pet projects downtown over its planned 20-year lifespan.

“This is important to the city,” City Manager Graham Mitchell said in an interview. “If the PBID were to go away, we don’t have the funding to pick up what they are doing.”

The El Cajon City Council on Tuesday agreed to move forward with a special vote asking property owners within the proposed district to approve the new taxing authority, which is being called the Downtown El Cajon Community Benefit District.

The successor to the Downtown El Cajon Business Partners would be larger; some 427 individual parcels owned by 300 or so different landowners. It is expected to generate almost $800,000 in its first year — and would be subject to 7% annual tax increases.

Ballots were scheduled to be mailed out by Thursday. The election results are due Sept. 15, when the council is expected to tabulate the votes at a public hearing.

Individual parcel taxes range from a few hundred dollars each year to tens of thousands of dollars for larger properties. The city of El Cajon is one of the biggest contributors to the fund; it would pay almost $100,000 a year — roughly $1 out of every $8 — into the special district.

With property owners’ permission, the tax will be imposed as soon as December, weeks before the Downtown El Cajon Business Partners successor agency is formally established.

But while the city promotes the new 20-year assessment, one critic of the Downtown El Cajon Business Partners is raising questions about how district officials have spent previous revenue, and whether they have complied with state laws.

They also question the plan to outsource management of the new district to New City America, the same San Diego firm that has been running the current agency since last year.

“This is not how public-benefit districts are supposed to operate,” said Rich Riel, a San Diego resident who sued Downtown El Cajon Business Partners in 2022, and won, after it refused to comply with state open-meeting and open-records laws.

“PBIDs are created by the city, funded by property owners and governed by rules that require transparency and annual reporting,” Riel said. “When the city participates as a property owner and board member, it cannot pretend to be a bystander. It cannot benefit from the system while disclaiming responsibility for how that system is run.”

The Downtown El Cajon Business Partners mission is to promote the city’s central business district. It works to meet those objectives by hosting events that attract people to the area and by keeping the neighborhood clean.

The district generally has spent most of its revenue on a clean-and-safe program that scrubs sidewalks and beautifies the downtown corridor. It also promotes a summertime weekly car show that has drawn crowds to Main Street on Wednesday nights for years.

El Cajon officials said they are not responsible for monitoring how the Downtown El Cajon Business Partners spends its property tax revenue, or whether it adheres to state and federal laws.

“The city does not have any oversight capacity of the community business district,” said Vince DiMaggio, the assistant city manager who previously served on the agency’s board of directors. “They don’t … We happen to be a board member.”

Even though the improvement district was set up under a law passed by the El Cajon City Council, city officials say their only oversight mechanism — besides holding a seat on the board of directors — is receiving an annual report that is forwarded to the council once a year.

By accepting the annual report, the City Council confirms it will maintain the same level of basic city services in the district as elsewhere — it doesn’t gain the authority to approve, reject or control the PBID’s spending.

But the reports amount to little more than summaries of the group’s revenue and spending, and pages of addresses of the taxed properties listed by parcel number.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars in spending by the district lack any detail beyond broad categories such as “outside contract services,” “environmental enhancements,” “legal expenses” and “marketing.”

By contrast, the El Cajon City Council regularly posts specific public expenditures in staff reports and other documentation that regularly exceeds hundreds of pages.

The lack of detail in the district’s spending records is part of the reason the city supported hiring New City America to better manage documentation and expenditures, Mitchell said.

The Downtown El Cajon Business Partners also has not disclosed any related-party transactions — financial arrangements between the organization and its directors and senior staff — even though it leases space from one of the governing board members.

Mitchell said he was unaware of the district’s lack of conflict-of-interest disclosures.

Federal tax law permits related-party transactions, as long as they are conducted at fair-market rates and disclosed to the public.

In his interview with The San Diego Union-Tribune, the El Cajon city manager downplayed any lack of disclosure, lack of outside district oversight and the nonprofit’s handling of the $500,000-plus that it collects from property owners every year.

“It’s not my area of authority,” Mitchell said. “It (The Downtown El Cajon Business Partners) wasn’t bleeding out.”

In his report to the City Council last week, Mitchell said the nonprofit has “a strong history of well-attended events and activities” and that “services have drastically increased and improved” since an outside consultant was hired to take over management.

Downtown El Cajon Business Partners board chair Ron Nevell declined multiple requests for an interview and did not respond to questions posed by email. Instead, he referred all questions to New City America.

Established by Marco LiMandri decades ago, New City America is largely credited with revitalizing the Little Italy neighborhood north of downtown San Diego over the past two decades.

The company also runs the Ballpark District surrounding Petco Park, the nearby East Village Association and a special benefits association in downtown Chula Vista, among other sites. It has worked with dozens of cities across the country to launch special taxing districts.

New City America was awarded a no-bid contract for $150,000 by El Cajon city officials three years ago to evaluate the Downtown El Cajon Business Partners operations and practices after some residents registered concerns about internal spending.

“It was sole-sourced,” said DiMaggio, the assistant city manager. “All of the rules were followed.”

After submitting a series of reforms and recommendations, the company was selected to take over management of the Downtown El Cajon Business Partners early last year.

“Their report showed that the current PBID law was becoming obsolete and didn’t provide for the transformational dynamic that’s seen in successful and thriving downtowns,” senior El Cajon management analyst Nate Prescott said.

Terms of the legal settlement between Riel and the Downtown El Cajon Business Partners call for the district to comply with the California Public Records Act and the Ralph M. Brown Act — the guiding rules over government documents and public meetings.

But the plaintiff now says the special district is no longer complying with the agreement, and says he may file suit once again.

Riel is not an impartial observer in his criticism of the Downtown El Cajon Business Partners. He and a business partner competed for the management contract that was ultimately awarded to New City America.

LiMandri said New City America was hired by the Downtown El Cajon Business Partners to manage the district after a competitive budding process, but he acknowledged there are no public records related to the bidding or evaluation process supporting the decision to retain his company.

“Everything was done verbally after the applicants were interviewed in a public forum,” he said by email. “We will send you any records you request, IF we can find them. Record-keeping was not apparently a priority prior to New City America taking over management.”

LiMandri later said New City America has no documents from the Downtown El Cajon Business Partners prior to the date his company assumed control of the organization.

“All of the records for Downtown, since we took over management of the district in March 2025 should be on the website, which we revamped to be compliant with the (California Public Records Act) and the Brown Act,” he wrote in an email.

LiMandri had a different response to Riel, after Riel requested documents related to the Downtown El Cajon Business Partners’ use of tax funds to help establish the new and larger community benefit district.

“DECBP is subject to the CPRA as it pertains to the work it does to operate the CBD,” he told Riel in a July 17 letter. “Formation and renewal activities are not undertaken using (PBID) funds. For this reason, DECBP is not a public entity as it pertains to the subject of your request.”

Current revenue and spending data for the existing district is not fully visible.

The most recent annual report on the Downtown El Cajon Business Partners website covers the year ending June 30, 2024 — more than two years ago. It cites $590,000 in expenses for the year and anticipates $570,000 in spending between July 2024 and June 2025.

According to the most recent annual audit, performed by an accounting firm in Mission Valley, the district saw $645,000 in expenses for the year ending June 2025, an increase of just over $20,000 over the prior year.

The audit is dated Aug. 26, 2025, and cites total assets of $854,000, about $40,000 more than the previous year.

EL CAJON, CA — Are you making your international travel plans for this year? Be sure you have a valid passport ready when you make your arrangements. To help with your passport application, the El Cajon Main Post Office is hosting a passport fair on Saturday, August 29, 2026.

Appointments are not required, but customers are encouraged to arrive early, as applicants will be served on a first-come, first-served basis. A cut-off time may be necessary if wait times exceed event hours. Passport photos are also available at this office.

The Passport Fair will be held at:

El Cajon Main Post Office 401 W Lexington Ave El Cajon, CA 92020

Date: Saturday, August 29, 2026 Time: 12:00 pm - 3:00 pm

To help speed up the process, customers should fill out forms ahead of time. Application forms and information on the costs and how to apply for a passport book and/or passport card can be found at usps.com/passport or travel.state.gov/passport. Customers can also obtain passport information by phone, in English and Spanish, by calling the National Passport Information Center toll-free at (877) 487-2778.

To apply for a passport, applicants must have a valid form of photo identification and proof of citizenship.

Passport fees for adults (16 years and older) are $130.00 payable to the ‘Department of State’ for the application fee and a separate payment of $35 to the Postal Service for its processing fee. For persons under 16, the total cost is $100 to the ‘Department of State’ and a $35 processing fee to the Postal Service. The Postal Service also offers a passport photo service at a cost of $15. The application must be paid by check. Check may also be used to cover the cost of photos and acceptance fees.

Proof of identification — You may submit items such as the following containing your signature and a photograph that is a good likeness of you: Current or previous U.S. passport, naturalization certificate, certificate of citizenship or a current and valid driver’s license, government ID or military ID.

A photocopy of the identification – front and back – must be submitted with your passport application. The post offices will be offering photocopy service for an added fee.

Proof of citizenship includes any one of the following:

Please visit Passport Application & Passport Renewal | USPS to see if you’re eligible to renew by mail.

Children Under 16 (state.gov) Both parents/guardians must authorize the issuance of a child’s passport. The best way to give consent is for both parents/guardians to go with the child when applying.

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