San Diego police arrested a 47-year-old man this week on suspicion of setting fire to a vacant Mission Valley dance club early on Christmas Day, a building that has caught fire several times in recent years.
Investigators said the homeless man was identified from surveillance video taken near a building on Mission Center Road near Mission Center Court.
Six days later, police arrested him. He is being held at the jail in lieu of $50,000 bail and is scheduled to be arraigned Friday, according to jail records.
Police said the man is not considered a suspect in the October fire that gutted most of the building, which was located near an office building and other commercial buildings.
The approximately 13,000 square foot, two-story building was constructed in 1986. For many years, it housed a lively nightclub. First there was Confetti’s, then the country-western themed Inkahoots, which operated for more than 25 years before closing at the end of the year. 2018.
When the building was sold in 2019, a representative for the seller told the San Diego Business Journal that the new owners planned to convert the building to retail use. The property is owned by Bridge California LLC, city officials said.
According to listing information posted in April, the property is on the market again.
For years, the vacant building attracted squatters. Firefighters who responded to a fire there in November 2020 told reporters they received reports of a large number of homeless people living in and around the property.
A larger fire broke out in the early morning hours of October 26, with a two-alarm fire that sent flames 30 feet high and required more than 100 firefighters to extinguish the fire. The fire caused part of the roof to collapse and authorities placed a red tag on the building, indicating it was unsafe. Records show the building is one of 46 red-tagged buildings in the city.
After the October fire was determined to be suspicious, city officials contacted representatives of the property owners and told them they needed to secure the property, a fire department spokeswoman said. It was also noted that security guards sometimes patrolled the outside of the building.
Fire officials also asked the city’s Building and Land Use Department to follow up on the enforcement situation. The city issued an administrative warning Tuesday outlining corrective actions property owners should take. Details about the warning were not immediately available.
The October fire is under investigation by the San Diego Metro Arson Task Force, officials said. Authorities are asking anyone with information to contact the Subway Arson Strike Team at 619-236-6815 or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers at 888-580-8477.
