By Jason Owens,
Thursday, May 20, 2010 -

After overseeing eight years of studies and proposals, Chargers special counsel Mark Fabiani broke down what he described as maybe the Chargers “last, best option” for a stadium in San Diego at a town hall style meeting Wednesday night.

And, Fabiani said, a potential make-or-break date for the proposed downtown stadium is coming up on June 22. That’s when the San Diego City Council will vote on whether to increase the spending cap for the Centre City Development Corporation (CCDC), which plays a vital role in downtown development and, thus, the fate of a potential downtown stadium.

But that’s complicated — let’s get to the nuts and bolts of the stadium first.

The proposal puts a stadium in East Village near Petco Park and the San Diego transit yards on a parcel of land that takes up fewer than 10 acres, which would be the smallest stadium footprint in the NFL.

It would seat around 62,000 (compared to 71,500 at Qualcomm) with expansion capabilities for the Super Bowl and other major events, such as the World Cup. It would take up about 1.3 million square feet (compared to 2 million square feet of the gigantic Cowboys Stadium in Dallas).

Tickets prices would escalate based on the Staples Center model in L.A. where fans pay premium prices for premium seats, allowing for more reasonable prices for less desirable seats – a model Fabiani believes the San Diego market can support.

And of course – the most important number of all — the cost. Fabiani estimates the cost of the proposed stadium in the $700-800 million range. The Chargers will foot $200 million. They’ll hope for another $100 million from the NFL, which would depend on opening up another version of the G3 loan program, in which the league used funds that helped build stadiums in Arizona, Dallas and New York — and is now exhausted. Fabiani hopes a new plan will be part of the new collective bargaining agreement.

The rest? It would come from public funds. Unlike prior, stalled proposals that placed a new stadium in Chula Vista, Oceanside, Escondido or Mission Valley, there’s no room to develop around a downtown stadium. The other proposals depended in large part on funds anticipated with additional development to supplement the stadium costs.

Fabiani wants the issue to be put to public vote and believes the Chargers have a plan in place that appeals to taxpayers — both Chargers fans and non-football fans alike.

“Nobody’s in the mood… to subsidize a stadium,” Fabiani said. “We have to show that this is a win-win deal for the public. We think that’s possible — not by magic or slight of hand, but because the Qualcomm land is sitting there.”

So, the public funding proposal hinges on the idea that freeing up the 166 acres that Qualcomm Stadium sits on is a big enough boon to the City of San Diego to make a downtown stadium financially desirable.

A study released earlier on Wednesday showed that Qualcomm operations cost taxpayers $17 million a year. The thought process: Recoup that money and monetize the land by selling it, leasing it, or, well — anything besides paying $17 million a year to own it — and the city benefits financially.

With the parking and transportation infrastructure already in place downtown, the cost to build the stadium will be less than other locations.

Add in the periodic financial influx from events a new stadium would attract — read: Super Bowl — and Fabiani believes the city has a situation that’s good for the Chargers and good for tax payers.

And then there’s the latest idea — put a roof on the stadium.

Put a roof over a stadium in San Diego? Preposterous, right?

Fabiani says CCDC chairman Fred Maas has raised the idea of putting a new-age retractable cloth roof on the stadium that would open up more use opportunities and free up another parcel of mostly dormant city-owned land — the San Diego Sports Arena site.

The idea is that with a retractable roof, the stadium replaces the functions of the Sports Arena and opens up endless possibilities — NCAA Final Fours, the NBA, convention space (save the Chargers and Comic-Con!) — you name it.

The privately-operated stadium would depend on and strive for regular year-round use beyond being the home for the Chargers.

So that gets us back to the CCDC, a downtown redevelopment group that’s played roles in Gaslamp revitalization and the building of Horton Plaza and Petco Park. The concept is that they take a portion money that’s generated downtown and shape it for further downtown development — which in turn creates more revenue. The cycle repeats.

June 22 marks the date that the City Council will vote on raising the spending cap for the CCDC — a number the CCDC is quickly approaching.

The downtown stadium proposal is in its infancy and requires additional study which Fabiani estimates would cost around $500,000 of CCDC funds, which are separate from the general funds. It’s the next step in making a downtown stadium possible.

Why don’t the Chargers foot that bill? Fabiani said the study is a CCDC study, and to use Chargers money would present a conflict of interest in the decision-making process. And the CCDC hasn’t put that option on the table.

If the study shows a downtown stadium is viable, Fabiani envisions a vote put to the public in 2012. If that passes, the next step would be planning and groundbreaking in 2013 with completion putting the Chargers in their new digs by 2016 or 2017.

But that entails a lot of ifs, ands, and buts. For now, the next biggest step for the Chargers is gaining public support via the City Council to raise the CCDC spending cap or figure out a way for the CCDC to fund the half-million dollar study.

Fabiani rallied for support of the Council members and other politicians, citing that no public stadium effort has been successful without an endorsement from a mayor or governor.

“You can’t get something like this done without the support of respected leaders,” he said

As for garnering support form the NFL in the form of loans, he put the league to task.

“California is not a state that this league can afford to ignore,” Fabiani said. “In order to keep teams in California, the league is going to have to find a way to loan money to teams the way it’s loaned money to teams all around the country.”

It was an answer to one of several questions from the 40 or so members of the public who arrived to discuss his presentation alongside the San Diego Stadium Coalition, a grassroots group that formed in 2009 and has organized support for building a new stadium.

Fabiani reinforced an idea of optimism that the economy would rebound in time for construction — that if it didn’t, there would be much bigger concerns than a football stadium. He said that previous ideas like building on the Chula Vista power plant site or in Escondido aren’t completely off the table, but have taken clear back seats to the downtown plan.

And he said that the Chargers have repeatedly turned down Ed Roski’s offers of a new home east of L.A.

But his primary message on Wednesday was clear.

“If you care about this, at least encourage your council member to vote for the study.”

Jason Owens is the SDNN sports editor. email: jason.owens(at)sdnn.com.