San Diego is again abuzz with the latest proposal for a new football stadium in San Diego.
The new grand plan has been nicknamed the “Convadium” – a convention center expansion AND a new football stadium together near Petco Park. The double jointed complex would serve to support the convention center and solve the on-again, off-again, now on-again saga of finding a new home for the Chargers.

This new proposal isn’t all that new but the cast of characters that have come together in support of it is very interesting, starting with the city’s most prolific lawsuit filing lawyer, Cory Briggs. Briggs sued and successfully stopped the last financing model for the convention center expansion. That case overturned a hotel tax that had been passed in a private vote among hotel owners. Briggs has argued that any tax increase must go before all San Diego voters, even if the tax only applies to hotel rooms taxing tourists.

The other big player in the Convadium plan is JMI, the development company of former Padres owner John Moores. JMI successfully developed Petco Park and hotels in the Gaslamp, helping launch the reinvention of the Gaslamp and East Village. JMI still owns parcels of land around the proposed site and could bring a big part of the solution and expertise to the table.

The new plan would put an initiative on the November ballot to approve a package deal: a new hotel room tax that could generate money to help pay the city’s portion of the new project without direct taxpayer dollars being diverted from other city priorities. The City could end up with a new stadium and a new convention center expansion funded primarily through tourism dollars.
The new plan is complicated and even some insiders don’t fully understand it or even believe it would work.  And now some local planners and community leaders have already come out dead against it.

Bill Adams, the co-founder of the non-profit law firm Public Interest Advocacy Clinic, is a member of the East Village People, a committee advocating for an innovation district in the area where the Convadium would go. Adams argues for using the South East Village area to host high-tech businesses, research centers, university buildings, and housing for high-tech workers. Other opponents of the plan included

Rob Quigley, the architect of the City’s new Central Library just two blocks away from the proposed Convadium site.
A major concern of the group is the impact a Convadium could have on Barrio Logan and the other neighborhoods long neglected by downtown planners and leaders. Opponents argue that building a massive, multi-block development would create a wall between Barrio Logan and the rest of downtown, cutting off the synergies that have been created in recent years.

Tourism-centric development also leads to an increase in hotel, restaurant, and other service industry jobs which tend to be low-skilled and low-paying, further creating a stratified economy of rich and working poor. Latinos, in particular, end up in many of those low end jobs with no real future income growth potential.

According to a 2014 National University study, the Ballpark has helped spur investment in downtown with more than 14,000 new housing being built since the opening of Petco Park. That increase in housing units, though, did not provide many new units that are affordable enough for local working families. Most of those units were expensive and small, aimed at high income individuals or out of town investors.

This Convadium plan has raised an interesting approach to solve two long-term problems San Diego has faced for years; expanding the Convention Center to serve ComicCon and other large events, and finding a way to build a new football stadium to keep the Chargers.
Over the years, San Diegans have proven to be frugal when it comes to voting for tax increases, even when the tax increase would fall on tourists. And San Diegans have not been very open to approving hundreds of millions of dollars to a new stadium for a team that has had its eye on LA for years. The Chargers helped fuel that disdain when they publicly courted LA only to get shut down by NFL owners in January.

San Diego is at a crossroads on this issue. It may finally be time to put up or shut up. Voters will have to decide a direction they want downtown to take, and how to pay for it.

The land use of a Convadium is much different from that of an innovation neighborhood. Hotels and parking lots could crowd out research centers and schools.

Do we want tourism to drive our land use and replace high-tech incubators and jobs?
Does San Diego want to become a tourism-based, service economy with sporting events and conventions driving our economy?

Our community should continue to watch this issue that will change the future of our city.
The decisions of a few could greatly impact the type of jobs and homes available to our children in the future.
Our vote could determine the outcome of this decision. Follow our continuing coverage and most importantly, vote in November.