South County Report: Rohr Legacy Keeps on Giving 

For much of the latter half of the 20th century, Chula Vista was dominated by Rohr Industries, a World War II-era aerospace manufacturer that, at its height, employed 10,000 people and served as a major component supplier for military and civilian aircraft. 

Frederick Rohr, a New Jersey-born descendant of German immigrants, founded the company in his garage in 1940. Earlier, Rohr had helped to build the Spirit of St. Louis airplane that carried Charles Lindbergh across the Atlantic Ocean in 1927. 

An entire generation of Chula Vista residents, including the mothers of current Mayor John McCann and former Mayor Mary Casillas Salas, owed their families’ livelihoods to jobs at Rohr’s sprawling bayfront manufacturing complex. 

In recent years, Wall Street financiers sliced and diced the company amid a series of sales to other aerospace firms. Manufacturing ceased in 2021, and portions of the company now form a bayfront research and development complex owned by Collins Aerospace. 

Still, the Rohr legacy lives on in Chula Vista. And now, two remnants of the once-storied company are poised to usher in some eye-catching changes at either end of the city. 

Gaylord Hotel Gets a Splashy New Neighbor 

One of those changes is slated to appear next door to Chula Vista’s latest landmark, the recently opened waterfront Gaylord Pacific Resort and Convention Center. 

The City Council on Tuesday voted to move ahead with an ambitious plan to transform much of the former Rohr factory site just inland from the Gaylord into a 45-acre complex of high-technology manufacturing facilities, corporate offices and a promenade of shops, restaurants and hotels. 

If built as envisioned, the complex would make Chula Vista a contender in the regional competition to attract high-paying jobs and tax-generating visitors. 

“It’s not an understatement to say there aren’t too many opportunities along the bayfront like” the project approved Tuesday, said David Graham, Chula Vista’s economic development director. “We see those opportunities along the bayfront as being a big asset for the city.” 

The plan approved Tuesday was proposed by San Diego-based developer Wohl Property Group, which has a track record of revitalizing disused industrial sites. Wohl bought the property in 2019 and is currently completing environmental cleanup work on contaminated soil and groundwater in partnership with Collins Aerospace. 

Councilmembers voiced enthusiasm for the project’s potential to link the Gaylord hotel to the rest of Chula Vista. 

“I am excited about that space becoming something that’s available for a vibrant project that connects…to the west side,” said City Councilmember Cesar Fernandez, who represents the bayfront area. “I am excited about what could be in that space.” 

Goodbye Horses, Hello Soccer Tournaments? 

Way over on the other side of Chula Vista, at the city’s northeastern border with the unincorporated community of Bonita, a very different part of the Rohr legacy is also undergoing transformation. 

Not everyone is happy about it. 

City park staff are planning a major overhaul of Rohr Park, a 60-acre multi-use park once owned by Rohr Industries and used as an employee recreation center. Frederick Rohr was a firm believer in the value of outdoor exercise and bought the park for that purpose in 1955. 

Rohr died in 1965. A year later, Rohr Industries sold the park to the city of Chula Vista. 

Generations of residents have grown up riding Rohr Park’s miniature steam train, playing soccer and softball on the park’s athletic fields, walking a network of paths and nature trails and gathering for family picnics. 

City officials now want to upgrade the park to modernize equipment, rehab restrooms, enhance sports facilities and potentially add new features, including pickleball courts, an amphitheater and an archery range. 

Chula Vista residents endorsed many of those changes in a recent series of community meetings. 

But there’s a catch. 

Rohr Park forms a kind of peninsula jutting into the middle of Bonita. Many users and neighbors of the park live in Bonita, not Chula Vista. Those neighbors are worried the city’s planned changes will clog their roads with traffic, sacrifice nature areas to soccer fields and – worst of all – possibly eliminate an equestrian arena that many semi-rural Bonita residents use to exercise their horses. 

Susan Heavilin, a Bonita resident who writes an up-to-the-minute local news blog, summed up her community’s conundrum: “We don’t own the park, but it’s surrounded by Bonita.” 

“The Bonita people want the peaceful walks and the nature and the wildflowers,” Heavilin said. “[Chula Vista’s planned] activity hub will be wall-to-wall activity and baseball fields and soccer fields…The horse people are upset. People on Sweetwater Road are upset. People with traffic issues are upset.” 

Frank Carson, Chula Vista’s parks director, stressed that city officials are still gathering community feedback and have not settled on a final plan or set a date to present plans to the City Council.

“The city is currently in the process of receiving public input,” Carson said in an emailed statement. “Concerns about the equestrian center, traffic and noise are part of the public feedback we are reviewing.” 

That is no doubt true. But the top three goals listed in a recent city presentation on park improvements do not sound auspicious for horse owners. The goals are: “Promote sports equity for all youth,” “enhance recreational infrastructure and safety” and “improve parking and regional access.” 

There is no mention of giving horses a good gallop. 

What would Frederick Rohr have thought? Judging by his purchase of Rohr Park in the first place, and by the generations of Chula Vista residents he helped to catapult into the middle class by providing them with good, steady jobs, I have a feeling he would have favored whatever option benefits the greatest number of ordinary people. 

Want to make your voice heard on the issue? The city will hold one of the last of its park-planning community meetings at 5:30 p.m. this evening at Rohr Park, 4370 Sweetwater Rd. 

In Other News 

• If you think Sweetwater Reservoir in Bonita looks a little fuller these days, your eyes do not deceive you. The Sweetwater Authority water agency, which manages the reservoir, recently transferred 10,000 acre-feet of water into the reservoir from another reservoir managed by the agency near Alpine. The transfer will help the agency supply customers with cheaper surface water instead of more expensive water purchased from the San Diego County Water Authority. 
• A long-planned transformation of a Chula Vista motel into a permanent supportive housing project for homeless people took a small step forward Tuesday when City Councilmembers voted to name the new facility Palomar Point. When completed next year, the project is expected to feature 27 studio apartments reserved for homeless residents and veterans earning less than 30 percent of the surrounding area’s median income. 
• The Living Coast Discovery Center will offer three-day wildlife day camps for elementary-school-age children during the Thanksgiving holiday. The camps, which run Nov. 24-26, will feature hands-on activities devoted to local wildlife and ecology. More information here. 

ICYMI: I recently wrote about how the Chula Vista Elementary School District handled (or failed to handle) allegations of sexual misconduct made against an elementary school special education teacher. I also covered the Chula Vista City Council’s approval on Tuesday of enhanced protections for local immigrants. 

The post South County Report: Rohr Legacy Keeps on Giving  appeared first on Voice of San Diego.