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“SDSU-Grand Plan-Needs Grand Amount of Money”

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Think big. Be bold. Shoot for the Moon. Leave no stone unturned.

All those catch phrases could be applied to the Thursday press conference at the crumbling Qualcomm Stadium sight, where San Diego State unveiled plans for its new football stadium.

It was flashy. A blend of all things new in what could be a football-soccer stadium to take San Diego State and the city of San Diego to new levels.

The open air 35,000-seat facility…that could be expanded to 55,000 if the NFL ever looked this way again.

A stadium home for Aztecs football, MLS soccer, tournaments, friendly matches, and concerts.

A double decked Taj Majal, designed much like the new Colorado State facility, the one at Baylor and at Minnesota, all put together by Populous, the legendary architectural firm.

And linking hands with SDSU is John Moores construction firm, JMI, brought in, not as a developer, but as a consultant. They know college stadiums too, having built some, renovated others. More importantly, they know developers and where the revenues should come from for investments.

The new 250M- Aztecs Stadium is the front piece of the entire West Campus Master Plan. SDSU wants to buy all 166-acres of the Q-sight, tear down the old NFL-stadium, and then develop a wide variety of parcels for retail, housing, office buildings, underground parking and more.

It’s bold, it’s different, it’s a progressive step forward, as San Diego’s explosive population and building growth continues.

A salute to SDSU on-campus and athletic leadership for making this come together. It’s important to the campus, equally as important to the community.

Oh, one other phrase worth using now. They want to fund-finance and build in time to open for 2021…if approved by the voters in the head to head ballot measures, opposing the Soccer City plan. The entire West Campus plan is a 15Y-3-Billion project. The stadium is step one towards greatness on the sight.

Waiting next to see who develops what, what they pay for those rights, and what the city charges SDSU when it comes time to sell the land to get th project moving forward.

Think big…be bold…shoot for the moon…leave no stone unturned. And a list of questions. Will the city pitch in like they did in the Chargers proposal? Can the County be a player? Will there be use of Hotel Tax money to help make this happen? Will there be fund raising among alumni? Will it be developer driven ala-Doug Manchester? Will all the other big money players in this market jump on board?

And now,one more catch important catch-phrase now…maybe the most important.

“Show Me the Money”.

A great start…all these Aztec ideas…now the great challenge…come up with the funding.

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