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Jun 05
2009
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Why Did the Chargers Reject Perry Dealy's Proposal?Posted by Jason Riggs in Taxpayers, stadium, Qualcomm, Perry Dealy, Mission Valley, Mark Fabiani, Donna Frye   |
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By Jason Riggs
When local developer Perry Dealy unveiled hi s plan for building a stadium, questions have lingered about the plan and the Chargers reaction.
Sure, there's something nice knowing that smart folks like Perry Dealy are willing to sit down and take on a problem like this one. And we can also take some solace in the fact that new ideas and new options are appearing on the negotiating table once again. All of those developments are positive in my opinion.
However, when it comes to Perry Dealy's plan there were some significant challenges and understandable reasons for the Chargers reaction.
First, let's start with the timeline as provided by Mark Fabiani of the Chargers:
(1) Dealy called us in January. He told us what he wanted to do -- develop
a new plan for the Qualcomm site -- and he asked whether we would provide
him with basic information about the stadium and NFL economics.
(2) We responded that we would be happy to give him whatever he needed but
that we spent more than four years and close to $10 million analyzing the
Qualcomm site and that we simply did not believe that it was possible to
make something happen there with a stadium without imposing incredible
density onto the site.
(3) Dealy responded that he understood but that he thought it deserved
another look. He said that he did not intend to announce anything to the
public that the Chargers and the Mayor's office did not support in advance.
(4) Over subsequent months we provided Dealy with some basic information on
stadium construction costs, on the revenues the Chargers needed to generate
from a new stadium, and on the barriers we had encountered when trying to
develop the Qualcomm site. These included the difficulty of creating a new
redevelopment district, the limits on density imposed by the community and
the limited infrastructure in the area, the problems caused by having to
play in the old stadium, build the new stadium and then only six years into
the project being able to start building your profit-making development, and
the increased construction costs/decreased real estate values that have
occurred since we made our proposal in 2003.
(5) In April Dealy began to shop his proposal around town, including meeting
with the Mayor. We learned of the details of the proposal through various
sources, and it was immediately clear to us that the enormous density he was
proposing would be a non-starter. For that reason, we declined Dealy's
efforts to meet and receive his presentation; our view was that once we had
a meeting, we would somehow become associated with his project.
(6) Our concern about being associated with the project is three-fold:
(a) We don't want to discourage other cities and developers from
working with us because they believe that we are going to return to the
Qualcomm site eventually.
(b) We don't want to alienate important local political figures --
Christine Kehoe, Donna Frye, and others -- whose help we may need on other
sites. (Dealy never briefed Frye, the Councilwoman representing the
Qualcomm area, on this project.)
(c) Dealy's plan includes several hundred million dollars of
taxpayer spending on the project, at a time of incredible economic and
budgetary distress, and we were concerned about being associated with such
an idea.
(7) Instead of meeting, we worked with Gary London, a member of Dealy's
team, and with the Mayor's office, to propose a solution. Simply put, we
proposed that Dealy delete the stadium from his plan, scale back the size of
the development, and propose a redevelopment of the site once the Chargers
find a stadium elsewhere in San Diego County. We felt that this solution
would allow Dealy to save face, and it would serve our purposes by showing
taxpayers what value could be unleashed from the Qualcomm site if the
stadium were located elsewhere and the site were returned to the city.
(8) Dealy rejected this solution and instead gave columnist Tim Sullivan of
the UT a full briefing last week on his proposal. Dealy also made it clear
that he was going public with his proposal this week.
So, as you can see, the Chargers approached the plan with an open mind and explored using Dealy's redevelopment proposal as part of the ancillary development associated with the stadium effort.
As of right now, Dealy doesn't appear to be open to such a move. So, the plan has been shelved. But even shelved plans are better than those that are never created. For even just by going through the exercise of drafting such a plan, new ideas are generated, new interest is sparked and the chances of getting a stadium built in San Diego County increase.
For more on Dealy's plan, please visit the Chargers website:
If you'd like information on how you can help us get a stadium built in San Diego County, please join the San Diego Stadium Coalition.