Last week, the mayor of San Diego Kevin Faulconer and Nick Canepa had lunch to discuss the possibility of having the Chargers Stadium in Downtown San Diego.
If you have been keeping up with the Chargers and their stadium, it’s been going on for years now. At least ever since I moved to San Diego back in 2003. Everyone wants a new stadium but nobody wants to pay for it. I’ve heard talk about having the Chargers move to LA, rebuild on the parking lot beside Qualcomm and multiple locations in downtown San Diego. So what’s going on with the Chargers?
The mayor said that Qualcomm stadium is not in good shape and he wants to make something work for the Chargers while he’s mayor. The previous oil spills on the current land would cost too much money to clean up and rebuild on the current site. I’m not sure how much but it much cost a fortune because that seems like a great spot for the stadium since it already works there with the trolley line and all. The developers would build the stadium but they also wanted the land around it to build properties and keep it for themselves. The city didn’t want to give the land away so that fizzled away. Now, downtown San Diego might be a viable option again for the new stadium.
Since the expansion of the Convention Center was ruled unconstitutional, Faulconer is looking into possibly combining the 2 to make each work out. I think this is a fabulous idea. We do need the expansion of the convention center to keep large conventions here such as Comic Con and other large groups that wanted to come here in the past but haven’t had the opportunity because of the space issue.
Now what will this mean for downtown San Diego Real Estate? Well, let’s just take a look at what Petco Park did for downtown. Petco Park was HUGE for downtown! An area where nobody wanted to go is now a booming place for people to live and enjoy going to restaurants and bars. For now, nobody goes east of Park Blvd because there’s nothing out there and it’s kind of scary with our urban campers. With this new stadium, new developments will have people walking east of Park blvd for more downtown options for all.
All I can say is: I want the Chargers to stay in San Diego and it would be awesome to see them in Downtown!