We end 2019 with a countdown of the five biggest stories of the year on Football Stadium Digest, as chosen by editors and partially based on page views. Today, #3: SDSU negotiates a new stadium plan with the City of San Diego.
San Diego State University‘s push to build a new stadium and surrounding development at the SDCCU Stadium site is making progress as 2019 winds down, with the university pushing to acquire land from the City of San Diego.
Work has been taking place for the past several years on the proposed new stadium, which will be designed to host SDSU football and professional soccer. A voter referendum in 2018 allowed SDSU to launch negotiations with the city, laying the groundwork for a 2019 that saw the university make considerable strides in negotiations over the final months of the year.
SDSU is seeking to purchase 135 acres of the SDCCU Stadium site in Mission Valley from the city, with hopes of constructing a project that includes a new home for its football program, along with a surrounding outpost for the university and a 34-acre river park. After an initial offer pitched in October drew skepticism from some city officials, SDSU presented revised terms, including a purchase price of roughly $87.7 million for the land, almost $20 million higher than its previous offer. Those terms, along with some other revisions made from the original proposal, contributed to the San Diego City Council’s decision in November to advance the offer to the purchase-and-sale-agreement stage.
It is anticipated that the city council could review a land sale agreement in January, marking the next step in the negotiation process. While there are still no guarantees that the stadium plan will move forward, SDSU has undeniably made progress toward completing a deal. The university’s goal has been to complete the stadium by the 2022 season, and it made some crucial decisions in 2019 to involve firms in the facility’s planning, awarding the construction contract to Clark Construction Group and naming Gensler as architect.
Notably, if the proposed stadium moves forward, it will be mean the end of SDCCU Stadium. First opening in 1967 as San Diego Stadium (then later known as Jack Murphy Stadium and Qualcomm Stadium), the facility is the former home of MLB’s Padres and the NFL’s Chargers and is currently being used by SDSU football.
Renderings via SDSU athletics.