Stadium task force picks Mission Valley
By
Lori Weisberg 09:04a.m. Mar 11, 2015, updated 11:27a.m. Mar 11, 2015
The mayor's task force Tuesday night agreed to recommend Mission Valley as the preferred location over downtown for a new Chargers stadium, according to a source.
The decision by the Citizens Stadium Advisory Group was unanimous, but the group's choice and its detailed rationale for that recommendation will not be released until Thursday, said a source who has knowledge about the meeting. The source said the group's recommendation was buttressed by an overwhelming amount of data and reports supporting a Mission Valley location.
Mark Fabiani, Chargers special counsel, declined to comment on the group's choice. Faulconer too chose not to weigh in on the group's recommendation.
"I'll let the task force speak for themselves," he said Wednesday morning. "They've been doing a lot of great work in expediting their process."
The site recommendation comes a little more than a month after the nine-member group held its first meeting and after reviewing numerous reports and hearing from various stakeholders, among them the Chargers and developers of proposed stadium sites, including one in downtown San Diego. The group is racing to meet a self-imposed May deadline for providing Mayor Kevin Faulconer with a recommendation for where a new stadium should be built and how to finance it.
CHARGERS STADIUM: LATEST HEADLINES
Momentum has been building toward a Mission Valley location, where the Chargers currently play, and the vast majority of fans at a recent public forum held by the task force said they favor building a new facility there as opposed to downtown. Although the Chargers a decade ago offered up proposals for a new stadium in Mission Valley, more recently they have been publicly advocating for a multi-use complex downtown that would combine a stadium and added convention center space to complement the city's bayfront facility.
The city's hoteliers have been clear they oppose a joint center and stadium, which theoretically could be financed in part with hotel room taxes. Any expansion of the center needs to be contiguous, which is what large associations want when they hold their conventions, hoteliers say. A planned $520 million expansion of the center was killed last year when a judge ruled that a hotelier-approved room tax to finance the project was unconstitutional.
STADIUM SPECIAL ON KUSI
Tune into KUSI on Thursday at 9 p.m. for a one-hour special on the Chargers stadium. U-T sports columnists Nick Canepa and Kevin Acee and U-T Editorial Editor Bill Osborne join KUSI’s Allen Denton, Sandra Maas, Ross Becker and Paul Rudy for an in-depth look at where the stadium should be built and who should pay for it.
Adding to speculation that a downtown stadium site was doomed was a recent report from the Metropolitan Transit System chief that said it could take as many as seven years to make it available. CEO Paul Jablonski has said it could cost $150 million to clear the 7.75-acre bus yard at 16th Street and Imperial Avenue so a new stadium could be built there and on the adjacent Tailgate Park, both east of Petco Park. That is where JMI Realty -- former Padres owner John Moores’ real estate company that oversaw the downtown ballpark district master plan -- has proposed building a joint use stadium and convention center facility.
Pressure is building for the task force to complete its work and the mayor to move forward on a stadium in light of the joint announcement Feb. 19 by the Chargers and Oakland Raiders that they are exploring a joint stadium project in the Los Angeles suburb of Carson.
