Chargers Stadium – It’s Down to Two
National City has officially taken itself out of the competition to be the site for the next Charger Stadium, due to their failure to secure cooperation from the City of San Diego and other regional partners. Although National City was the first to propose the Chargers move to their city, the cost to make it happen at National City’s potential sites proved prohibitive.
Have the Chargers given up on San Diego county? Chargers Special Counsel Mark Fabiani explained,
“Our goal is to keep the team in the San Diego region. We have two cities that are very interested in working with us, and we continue exhaustively to explore all of our options in Chula Vista and Oceanside.”
The current concept for the Oceanside development includes building office space around the stadium, with the plan that the private sector revenue generated from the office development would help fund the stadium project. Tomorrow, the Chargers organization will meet with Oceanside officials.
“We want to report back to the city on the discussions we’ve had with developers and get the city’s point of view on whether they believe the people of Oceanside will support such an office village,”
said Fabiani. If they decide the office village is not feasible, it’s possible that the Chargers and the City of Oceanside will come up with another concept for the site before giving up on this location.
In Chula Vista, a consultant is studying the possible sites on which the stadium could be built. This study is being paid for by the Chargers, at a cost of $220,000, and is due to be completed in June.
Not much else has changed since I last reported on this in January. Neither city has taken this issue to the ballot yet, and there are vocal advocates in both cities, as well as detractors that are just as loud. Even after the details are ironed out, it’s unclear whether the voters in either city will approve the plan.
As for me: I’m still pulling for Oceanside, but I wish they were considering the location of the old drive-in theater on Mission instead of the golf course.
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