Chula Vista s Third Avenue celebrates Park(ing) Day sandiegouniontribune.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from sandiegouniontribune.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
School boards: Sweetwater Union High School District, 6 p.m. Monday
Emergency rental funds program expands
Chula Vista is urging renters and landlords to apply for its Emergency Rental Assistance Program while funds are still available. Changes to the program recently enacted by the state have expanded benefits to new applicants and previously approved applications. Eligible households that have been financially affected by the COVID-19 pandemic can receive more payment assistance to help with rent and utilities. Apply at chulavistaerap.com. Financial assistance is available for past-due rent from April 1, 2020, to March 31, 2021. Tenants can also apply for past-due utilities and for current and future rent assistance. Tenants are limited to a total of 12 months of financial assistance.
Matsu, the American/Japanese pop-up restaurant founded in Oceanside in July 2019, will be moving into its own permanent space on April 1.
Chef-owner William Eick had been fine-tuning his concept as a tasting menu offered to just one table for one seating three nights a week at Mission Ave. Bar & Grill, where he formerly worked as executive chef. Plans to move Matsu into its own space were derailed last year by the pandemic. But in December of 2020, Eick got word of a space in Oceanside opening up this spring, and he felt the time was right.
“We’re seeing drastic changes in Oceanside, and people are itching to get back out again to have some sort of experience. So it seemed like a wonderful time to do it,” Eick said.
Third Avenue in downtown Chula Vista recently completed its multi-year facelift project.
Local officials and small business owners this month celebrated the completion of the streetscape improvement project that began nearly a decade ago.
The $14.1 million three-phase project includes better pedestrian access, an expanded bicycle parking, energy efficient lighting and drought-tolerant landscaping, as well as new medians among other traffic-calming measures.
Funding was provided by the San Diego Association of Governments, the TransNet program, the Third Avenue Village Association and the city.
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“Third Avenue is the heart of our historic downtown with shops, restaurants and many locally owned businesses,” Mayor Mary Casillas-Salas said. “That’s what we’re proud of, that they are locally owned by people who grew up in this area.”
“We’re tired, Sparks said with a sigh. “I have no more fight left in me.”
Sparks has co-owned the restaurant with his wife, Kathy, for 14 years. During that time, Mangia Italiano hosted everything from wedding parties to Chula Vista City Council candidate debates. The walls of one hallway include pictures of local dignitaries who frequented the restaurant.
As the pandemic dragged on, Sparks took on a leading role for the other small business owners on Third Avenue. They worked together to develop their own no-touch carry-out system, where employees would drop orders off on the hoods of vehicles.
“I made some phone calls, Sparks said. I tried to get people to pull together a little bit. I talked to business owners.”