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“San Diego—Big City-Small Time”

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Explain the psyche of the leadership in San Diego.
Detail for me the politicians in San Diego.
Rationalize the voters in San Diego.

In what appears to be a ‘here we go again’ scenario, the City Council and the Mayor are now reviewing proposals from 2-firms who want to rebuild the Sports Arena-Midway District into a sports-entertainment venue.

The valuable piece of property, where the 54-year old Sports Arena sits, will be developed with housing, businesses, entertainment venues.

The two finalists include proposals from Brookfield Properties…a firm linked with AEG, the Anschutz Entertainment Group.  The other finalist is the firm Toll Brothers.

Brookfield wants to create something akin to “LA Live”..the restaurant-theatre district that wraps around the Staples Center, home of the Lakers-Clippers and Kings.  AEG (Anschutz) has a history of success, witnessed by what they also did at the London “O Sports” complex in England and that creation in LA..

However Brookfield is not going to change anything within the Sports Arena, but will develop the 48-acres adjacent

The Toll Brothers package includes 125M for renovation of the aging Gray Lady, the arena, plus an outside 13,000-seat modular soccer stadium to be built by the San Diego Loyal.  That package will also include on its sight, housing units, and office building, and a garage.

For as big as San Diego is, 8th biggest city in the nation, it is small minded.

How do you not find a way to either finance and build a new Sports Arena, or spend money to renovate the inside?  Maybe Brookfield  feels there will never be an NHL or NBA team relocating here, and there is no need.

The Toll Brothers proposal means they won’t just slap some paint on the old arena, but likely gut it and start over, keeping the historic facade that reminds us of yesteryear and the old Great Western Forum in LA.  But at least their proposal for an outdoor stadium means something new for soccer in the city.

But that then goes against the grain of what is planned for the new Aztecs stadium on the land sight of SDCCU Stadium.  So how many new soccer venues do we need.

Nothing has ever made sense in this market, and I have now lived here 33-years.

You do remember the 22-lawsuits that tried to stop the building of Petco Park.  Look what that has meant to the Padres and the Gaslamp Quarter.

We lost the Chargers because no one could get a stadium package passed for the Q-sight, because of politics, the economy, governmental leadership and the selfish greed of the Spanos family who wanted to go to Los Angeles.

You do recall the decades of struggles for the Convention Center and the continued war of how we expand it to grow our best-biggest industry, tourism.

End of the day, I don’t know how you go forward in San Diego if renovation or construction of something shiny and new does not take place on the Sports Arena sight.  A new building or a renovated almost new building has to be part of the project.

San Diego….big city…continues to be plagued by small minds.

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