The National City City Council authorized its city manager to negotiate with the Chargers in the team’s efforts to build a new football stadium.
By a unanimous 5-0 vote, the council agreed with City Manager Chris Zapata’s suggestion that the city should move to develop a 52-acre chunk of bayfront property. The city has 10 years or less, Zapata said, to bridge a structural budget gap and must look for ways to boost revenues.
One such way would be to possibly build a stadium, which would bring the boost of temporary construction, and then about 25 events a year at least to the area, Zapata said. He said a stadium could end up drawing a number of other events could come to the area, too, such as soccer, the Super Bowl, the Olympics or even the World Cup.
The port currently owns the 52-acre plot targeted by Zapata. That plot earns the port about $2.3 million in lease revenue, but doesn’t bring National City a dime, he said.
“That’s a situation that we’ve talked with port staff about that’s untenable,” Zapata said.
Several council members expressed a desire to bring in revenue into National City from the port land.
Representatives of tenants along the waterfront and Teamsters argued against building the stadium, saying it would display good jobs and local businesses. No residents spoke in favor of the negotiations at the Wednesday hearing.
And here’s an interesting fact I learned today while sitting in the National City council chambers: it is dubbed the “City of Action” on its flag.
Read more about National City’s push for the Chargers here.