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Originally Posted by spoonman
(Post 6678202)
You may not care about the Chargers, but many do. The Chargers need a solution almost as bad as Comic-Con. Remember that at 8 games a year times 70,000 seats, that's 560,000 attendees. If 15% are from out of town, that is 84,000 attendees that may need hotel accommodations, dining, etc. Like Comic-Con, an NFL team provides us a lot of exposure and brings people here.
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I agree that the NFL and the Chargers do give us a lot of exposure ("free advertising") but I'm not convinced it's worth giving up rare high-density land use. Sure, we might not be on Monday Night Football, but regardless, people will be having children and those future generations are going to need housing. NFL vs. Housing hmmm...
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Big projects like the stadium and CC will likely not get done expeditiously unless self interested big name developers are helping to push this along. Our citizenry is too short sighted to make any of this happen, and people on the city council will not pass measures to make this a reality for fear of reprisal. Face it, the same people that don't want you to have increased density and better transit, also don't want you to have an airport, convention center, or stadium. (NIMBY's -and their appointees-are why we can't have nice things!)
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I agree. I think we need to pick and choose our battles more wisely. Convincing (or forcing) NIMBY's to accept higher densities and more housing should be a higher priority than convincing them to build elites publicly-funded sky-boxes.
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So...my opinion is that it is worth it to pony up a couple large underutilized mega-blocks to get a convention center and stadium done (remember that this will also free Qualcomm in Mission Valley for high density development). I also support this view because I believe that the project can be done to blend into the existing area and will further accelerate growth in EV. But, the design has to be good for this to work. Nobody wants to see a project waste space for additional density, or ruin/wall off sections of downtown. (I was just lamenting our torn up street grid yesterday. Things like Pantoja Park were a huge "fail".)
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The problem is there are only a few, large underutilized mega blocks left. After that, zip. I've gone over our future planning options. No one around downtown will accept densities increases. Nowhere in the city. Meanwhile, the Chargers should park their stadium in Mission Valley, Chula Vista, or wherever else (LA, San Antonio, Las Vegas) while we retain the slivers of land we have for high-density development.
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I want room for high rises as much as the next guy, but as I think about it, high rises can be built in Downtown (and in this project), Mission Valley, UTC, and parts of Kearny Mesa. Eventually we will probably add another name or two to this list. I say suck it up and get it done. There is still a lot of land for development, and this project will help spur more growth and help re-centralize the city.
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You're not going to build housing on top of a stadium, or around it given the land constraints - this isn't PETCO, this is a smaller footprint. Incorporating high-rise or multi-use development around a new stadium still doesn't address the wasted space the stadium itself takes up.
UTC is pretty much built out, with all new high-rise development approved and locked in. Westfield (2-3 towers), Costa Verde (4 towers), La Jolla Commons (1 tower) and that's about it. The community won't take any more development - something admitted by Costa Verde's developers when they sought approval for their master plan 7 years ago. And these aren't downtown densities, these are UTC level projects (15-24 stories at most), nowhere near what downtown could build in FAR and height.
Mission Valley does have a lot of potential, but with a max height of 250' it's not very spectacular, nor realistic (100' average is more likely). It's also not a cohesive urban environment, as we all know. There is no grid, no walkable neighborhoods (some exist as standalone projects, such as Civita or Portofino, but they aren't connected or cohesive). Mission Valley will take in a lot of the new housing we need, but it's not going to be downtown - it's just not designed for it given the geography and history of planning.
Kearny Mesa will be lucky to get 6 story structures. Nothing will approach the Spectrum Center tower (what is that? 12 stories?), not after the airport NIMBY's forced it to chop off two floors. The area will take in more density and housing, but like Mission Valley, it's not a true urban center like downtown.
If neighborhoods like Hillcrest, Uptown, and Golden Hill were more responsible and started accepting higher density projects (not towers, but mid-rises) then I would be more comfortable with the Chargers stadium downtown. But they aren't, they're doing the opposite. Those are urban neighborhoods with designs similar to downtown in infrastructure and layout. But they insist on bubble wrapping themselves, and those decisions are going to last us another 30 years.
If I could keep the Chargers, I would. I don't even mind paying for some of it. I'll vote yes on a reasonable proposition. But not if it's for a downtown stadium/convention center hybrid. There are no high-density lands to waste in this city of the small minded. So adios Chargers, and goodbye Comic-Con - more housing and sustainable urban design for future generations of San Diegans are more important than Monday Night Football or a weekend of cosplay.