The future of football, and East Village, at stake in San Diego

By Dave Schwab

Opponents and proponents of the “Convadium,” a joint convention center-stadium proposal, are squabbling publicly with competing visions for redevelopment, which could redraw Downtown San Diego’s landscape for generations to come.

In one corner are the San Diego Chargers and their supporters. The team has now announced a preference for remaining in San Diego, but it wants to build a long-sought-after, state-of-the-art football stadium near Petco Park, rather than redevelop the existing Mission Valley Qualcomm site.

On the other side are stakeholders like David Malmuth of the I.D.E.A. District, an effort begun more than four years ago to create an East Village innovation and design jobs cluster. Malmuth and others question the viability — and wisdom — of the Convadium proposal.

And then there is an entirely separate Downtown redevelopment proposal, the so-called Citizens’ Plan. Co-authored by attorney Cory Briggs and former San Diego City Councilmember Donna Frye, the Citizens’ Plan contends cost savings can be realized on a Downtown stadium by combining it with a convention center expansion.

While the Briggs-Frye alternative would prohibit public funding for the stadium, they are proposing a redevelopment of the existing Qualcomm site as open space and an expanded river park and research facilities, along with extending San Diego Sate University’s campus.

Malmuth of I.D.E.A. Partners, LLC, contends funding for the estimated $1.8 billion Convadium proposal might be better spent elsewhere.

“There should be a more thoughtful and thorough analysis of the impacts of a variety of different visions for this project [Downtown stadium], and we owe it to ourselves to listen to the people most impacted, Downtown residents and businesses, because this is the largest public investment that’s been contemplated by the city ever,” Malmuth said. “We ought to know what kind of return we’re going to get on that investment.”

Fred Maas, special advisor to the chairman of the San Diego Chargers, said the Convadium proposal is “not a vision dictated by the team,” but rather a vision that “extends back to 1998 when Petco Park was approved and there was a sports and entertainment overlay contemplated for this area.”

“To say this is some new concept for this area — nothing could be further from the truth,” Maas contended.

Attorney Cory Briggs said the Citizens’ Plan is not only bringing the conversation about how best to redevelop Downtown out in the open, but is getting the various stakeholders to cooperate in the discussion. Briggs said the transparent way the Convadium proposal is being handled could change the business-as-usual mentality Downtown.

“The way things work now is that, if anybody takes an idea to City Hall, everybody else craps on it first, and then asks what the idea was,” Briggs said. “That’s the San Diego way. And that’s not good for the public.”

Signature gathering commenced April 23 for the Chargers Convadium proposal, which if successful, will ask San Diego voters in November to raise taxes on hotel stays to 16.5 percent from today’s 12.5 percent rate to help build a $1.8 billion hybrid stadium and convention center next to Petco Park Downtown.

The idea is that hotel guests, the Chargers and the National Football League would be picking up the tab for the Convadium, unlike previous proposals requiring general taxpayer funds for part of the financing.

Maas likened the situation with the new Convadium proposal to the successful attempt to build a new Central Library Downtown. That process, Maas noted, “took 10 years with an enormous amount of opposition from folks raising issues about the appropriateness of public dollars being used for it. But today, as they say, success has a thousand fathers.”

“We don’t feel as though we have some new revolutionary idea,” Maas added. “We think this project [Convadium] is very much in the spirit of a long-term vision for these blocks [near Petco].”

In Malmuth’s view, the “right approach” for Downtown redevelopment is for the city to work with stakeholders to figure out what types of redevelopment can occur Downtown, then figure out what’s best for everyone.

“Much of it is public land,” he said. “Which is why it’s imperative that there be a thoughtful analysis of multiple options, as what we select is really going to be long term.”

Malmuth maintains that creating an “innovation cluster and idea district” would have better “economic, quality-of-life and job impacts Downtown than a Convadium.”

Briggs praised the conversation going on now about the Convadium proposal, noting that it’s “taking place in public rather than maneuvering in the dark of night.”

Briggs added that the Citizens’ Plan does not take a position on a Chargers stadium Downtown.

“We’re neutral on that,” he said. “We just believe that everyone should have an equal opportunity to make their best case for the future of San Diego. This is a step in the right direction for the community — and a tectonic shift in the way these types of issues are being vetted.”

“It’s the most important land-use decision this city is going to make probably for the next 50 years,” Malmuth concluded, noting the stakes are high with the Convadium proposal, or whatever else might be done to replace it Downtown. “Whatever decision we make should be informed by the facts.”

Maas conceded that the Convadium proposal does add one new “wrinkle” to redevelopment around Petco park.

“It would be more than a football stadium experience,” he said. “It would provide additional convention center space in a new vibrant facility that can attract a whole series of events that currently cannot be handled in San Diego.”

Best of all, Maas contended, “It will all be paid for by a visitor tax, and not one cent by voters in San Diego living in the city who don’t stay in a hotel.”

— Dave Schwab can be reached at [email protected].