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To prepare for my interview on the Chargers stadium search today on KPBS’ “San Diego Week,” I called team special counsel and stadium point man Mark Fabiani. He ran down what’s been a busy couple of weeks for the team and downtown San Diego site. The site is about 15 acres, located east of Petco Park and is the current home to the Wonder Bread building.
Here’s what he had to say:
- Fabiani met this week with Mayor’s Office policy man Phil Rath and downtown redevelopment agency head Fred Maas. Maas, the chairman of the city-run Centre City Development Corp., is the team’s main contact with the city, Fabiani said.
“It was important to us because Fred has pulled off big projects like this,” Fabiani said.
Maas’ participation also is significant because his agency could be involved in the stadium’s financing through redevelopment tax revenue.
- Fabiani pegged the cost of the project as $750 million to $1 billion. He has long touted that a site downtown saves money because transportation infrastructure, such as roads and parking, are already in place.
- The team is having its environmental consultants examine the site. There’s likely to be some level of contamination because of the San Diego Transit Corp.’s bus yard included in the site. The team isn’t concerned about a geological fault line that runs through the western portion of Tailgate Park, also included in the site plans.
- Fabiani also met this week with the team’s Kansas City-based stadium architects, Populous (formerly HOK). The plans are for 64,000 seats. Preliminary designs put all the luxury boxes on one side of the stadium. Shops, bars and restaurants will be on the first floor. Unlike other football stadiums, this one would be right along the city street.
“We’re not that far away from releasing drawings,” Fabiani said.
- The team hopes to complete a preliminary financial analysis in two months, Fabiani said. For context’s sake, that’s around the time, L.A. developer Ed Roski plans to shop financial plans to the Chargers and other team for his stadium project in the city of Industry.
The show airs at 8 p.m. on KPBS television.