Daily Business Report: Wednesday, Oct. 20, 2021
Midway Village unveils new plan for
redeveloping 45-acre Sports Arena site
Midway Village, a team of housing, office and sports arena developers and architects, is back with a new proposal to redevelop the 49-acre Sports Arena site in the Midway District.
The team narrowly lost the first round of bidding on the project last year. It is now comprised of Bridge Housing and Toll Brothers, stadium designer Populous, venue developer Oak View Group and event manager Live Nation. The plan includes a permanent home for the San Diego Loyal.
Details of the plan were unveiled a week ago in Point Loma. The plan includes:
• Affordable homes for low-income and middle-income families.
• Market rate homes.
• A new Sports Arena built and financed by Oak View Group.
• A 12-acre park to serve the entire Midway area.
• A permanent soccer stadium for the Loyal.
“We believe we have the best plan and the best team, but this is a competitive process so we’re going to need your support to bring this plan to life,” project executive David Malmuth told the crowd at Stone Brewing. “This is a plan designed specifically for San Diego but this process is just beginning, and our plan will evolve and become stronger as we hear from you and other members of the community.”
TOP PHOTO: Rendering courtesy of McCullough Landscape Architecture and AVRP Studios.
Costco Business Center to replace Fry’s
Electronics in San Marcos
San Diego County’s second Costco Business Center will open in the former site of Fry’s Electronics in San Marcos sometime next year to provide area merchants with inventory and general shoppers with deals on items not stocked in the more-prominent Costco Wholesale stores.
“It’s really going to serve the business community, and it’s positioned in a place that’s really central for the thousands of businesses next to that location,” San Marcos Economic Development Director Tess Sangster said about the store at 150 Bent Ave. “You’ve got a lot of restaurants, breweries, industrial users. I think they’ll use it regularly.”
Because many stores may buy some of their inventory at a Business Center, Sims said members can buy items at a savings by shopping from the same store as retailers.
New study says e-cigarettes don’t
help smokers stay off cigarettes
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have suggested that smokers who are unable to quit smoking may benefit from vaping e-cigarettes, but a new study by Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science at UC San Diego finds they do not help smokers.
Published in the Oct. 19 online issue of JAMA Network Open, the study reports that e-cigarette use — even on a daily basis — did not help smokers successfully stay off cigarettes.
“Our findings suggest that individuals who quit smoking and switched to e-cigarettes or other tobacco products actually increased their risk of a relapse back to smoking over the next year by 8.5 percentage points compared to those who quit using all tobacco products,” said first author John P. Pierce, professor at the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center.
Company board of directors increase gender
diversity faster than racial and ethnic diversity
Companies are disclosing the racial and ethnic composition of their boards at a record rate. While just 24 percent of the S&P 500 disclosed the racial composition of their boards in 2020, 59 percent did so in 2021, according to a new analysis by The Conference Board and ESG data analytics firm ESGAUGE.
Moreover, the rate of disclosure more than tripled in the Russell 3000, from 7.7 percent in 2020 to 26.9 percent in 2021.
This year’s newly elected directors brought greater gender diversity to the boardroom, while racial and ethnic diversity continued to lag. Women’s total representation on Russell 3000 boards increased from 21.9 percent in 2020 to 24.4 percent in 2021. And in a sign of faster progress, women represent about 38 percent of this year’s newly elected class of directors in both the Russell 3000 and S&P 500.
However, the rate of change is much lower when it comes to racial and ethnic diversity. According to Russell 3000 disclosure documents, the percentage of African Americans in the new director population was 11.3 percent for the class elected in 2020 and rose only to 11.5 percent for the class elected in 2021. Latinos were 6 percent of the 2020 class and 6.5 percent in 2021, while Asian, Hawaiian, or Pacific Islander directors went from 2.9 percent to 3.1 percent. Of the 2021 class of new directors, 78.3 percent were white.
Palomar Health president and CEO Diane Hansen
wins CEO of the Year Award from asssociation
Diane Hansen, president and CEO of Palomar Health, won the CEO of the Year award from The Association of California Healthcare Districts for her leadership and transformation of the North County healthcare district.
Formed in 1948, Palomar Health is California’s largest healthcare district by area, serving an 850-square-mile area.
Over the past three years as the top executive at Palomar Health, Hansen’s leadership has helped stabilize the organization’s finances, reduce patient length of stay and earned it multiple patient quality awards.
“These accomplishments would not be possible without the tremendous support of the Palomar Health Board of Directors, my executive team and all the top-notch staff at Palomar Health,” Hansen said.
California sees driest year in a century
CalMatters
The bad news: California just wrapped up its driest year in a century and its second-driest year in recorded history, with only 11.87 inches of rain and snow falling in the Golden State from Oct. 1, 2020 through Sept. 30, 2021, according to the Western Regional Climate Center. That’s half of the 23.58 inches California logs in an average water year — suggesting that mandatory statewide restrictions could be on the way as devastating drought persists. On Monday, Vice President Kamala Harris visited Lake Mead, the Nevada reservoir that supplies water to 25 million people in California, Arizona, Nevada and Mexico, to promote the Biden administration’s infrastructure and climate change packages (which are currently stalled in Congress). Behind her, the reservoir’s water levels were at their lowest in history.
Melissa Simonson announces move
to head of marketing for Eva
Melissa Simonson, the former general manager of Empowery, announced she has officially stepped into a new role as head of marketing for Eva, a platform for brands and retailers to scale their Amazon business.
Simonson will remain on the board of Empowery.
“Building Empowery into an organization that exists for the sole purpose of helping e-commerce entrepreneurs has been an incredibly exciting time in my life,” Simonson said.
“It was an excruciatingly difficult decision to step down as GM, but I was able to make that decision because I will still be able to continue to serve entrepreneurs in the eCommerce community in my new role at Eva.”
San Diego County Vintners Association Wine
Festival returns Oct. 24 after COVID-19 hiatus
The San Diego County Vintners Association (SDCVA) will host the 25th Annual SDCVA Wine Festival on Sunday, Oct. 24 from 1 – 4 p.m. at Bernardo Winery, 13330 Paseo Del Verano Norte, San Diego 92128. Tickets are $80 for unlimited wine tasting, individual charcuterie plates, live music and plenty of fresh air at the Bernardo Winery outdoor garden. Tickets can be purchased through Brown Paper Tickets.
Dozens of San Diego County’s finest wines, many of them award-winning, will be poured at the only wine festival to exclusively feature wine made in San Diego County. Attendees will discover the array of varietals produced countywide and connect with the wine makers, learn more about their craft and San Diego County’s
Funds raised will support association education and marketing programs for SDCVA member wineries and vineyards.
Click here to purchase tickets.
City of San Marcos to hold workshops
on the update of the city general plan
The City of San Marcos is hosting a series of workshops for the update of its General Plan. The General Plan serves as the guiding document for achieving the community’s vision, and the General Plan Update process will provide residents and businesses with the opportunity to help shape the future of San Marcos.
The General Plan provides policy direction related to land use, community design, mobility, open space, natural resources, economic development, public safety, infrastructure, and more.
Community members are invited to upcoming workshops including:
• Workshop 1: “Vision and Values,” 6 to 8 p.m. Oct. 25, San Marcos Senior Activity Center, 111 Richmar Ave.
• Workshop 2: “Land Use and Community Design,” 6 to 8 p.m. Nov.16, San Elijo Recreation Center, 1105 Elfin Forest Road.
• Workshop 3: “Mobility,” 6 to 8 p.m. Dec. 2. San Marcos Community Center, 3 Civic Center Drive.
City of Oceanside offers grants
to businesses impacted by COVID-19
The City of Oceanside is partnering with the Oceanside Chamber of Commerce and MainStreet Oceanside to manage a grant program that will award grants ranging from $1,000 to $7,500 to small businesses impacted by COVID-19.
Grant amounts will be determined based on an objective system that measures the financial impact of COVID-19 on the business.
The application period is now open and will close on Nov. 19, 2021. Grant awards are anticipated to be distributed in December 2021. To learn more, follow the link below.
Businesses located in downtown Oceanside can apply online through Main Street Oceanside, by clicking here.
All other Oceanside businesses can apply online by clicking here.
City of Escondido receives $38 million
in COVID-19 relief funds
The Escondido City Council accepted $38.8 million in coronavirus recovery funds from the American Rescue Plan Act during its Sept. 29 meeting.
The council approved using the funding for investments in parks and other public outdoor recreation spaces, sidewalk repairs, increasing tree canopy and connecting the Escondido Creek Trail to certain access points in the community, improving access to clean drinking water, improving wastewater and stormwater infrastructure systems, providing access to high-quality broadband service, as well as supporting public health response.
Nonprofit giving platform Classy
announces its first acquisition — Fondi
Classy, a giving platform that enables nonprofits to connect supporters with the causes they care about, announced its first acquisition since the company’s founding in 2011. Fondi, a virtual and hybrid events platform, will relaunch as Classy Live, a solution that will offer nonprofit customers best-in-class technology for their virtual and hybrid fundraising events.
Classy acquired Fondi’s technology from Lennd, a next generation event operations portal that simplifies operations and logistics for events teams nationwide. Fondi’s technology serves as an all-in-one virtual events platform built for fundraising teams to increase revenue, engagement and retention.
Fondi co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Josh Parolin, will join Classy as vice president of engineering to focus on the Classy Live events platform.
Netradyne and First Student partner
to help create safer roads and communities
San Diego-based Netradyne, a leader in artificial intelligence (AI) and edge computing focusing on driver and fleet safety, and First Student, the leading school transportation provider in North America, announced a partnership to help create safer roads and transportation for students.
Through this relationship, First Student will initially deploy Driveri vision-based driver recognition devices at selected locations, with plans to evaluate future expansion.
Driveri will be implemented as part of First Student’s DriverScore program. This initiative measures a driver’s performance to help improve the quality and safety of transportation service for school districts and their families.
First Student said Driveri is the most advanced vision-based driver recognition and fleet safety solution, built to reinforce positive driving behavior and pinpoint coaching and improvement opportunities.