Artist's rendering of proposed new San Diego Chargers stadium on the waterfront.
A Seattle paper, Crosscut.com, has used San Diego development as an example of what not to do while moving through their own planning process for a new waterfront park.
Mark Hinshaw, FAIA, architect and urban planner at a Seattle architecture firm wrote:
"But 1,250 miles to the south, at the other end of the left coast, another city is embroiled in a throwdown between its mayor and a powerful local developer. Mayor Jerry Sanders has long advocated an expansion of the city’s elongated convention center, located between the downtown and the bay. Despite its dramatic form, the convention center has created a lengthy wall with a row of truck docks facing the water. Mayor Sanders wants to rearrange the functions of the building and open it to water views and a series of connected public spaces.
Enter the ebullient and prickly hotel developer Doug Manchester, who insists on people calling him “Papa Doug,” with his own grand vision. Last year Manchester purchased the venerable, 144-year-old San Diego Union-Tribune. He immediately began using its front pages to trumpet a proposal to locate a new San Diego Chargers football stadium, along with an additional smaller arena, on the Tenth Ave. Marine Terminal that is immediately to the south of the convention center. Now a full civic debate is under way."
Mr. Hinshaw's full article "San Diego: how NOT to treat a central waterfront" may be of interest to you, Charger fan or not.
Just a whacky idea on my part: How about the Chargers pay fo their own stadium. I think the Petco Park ripoff id fresh enough in our minds to know how this works.
1Team: Spend lots of money on players, do exceptionally well.
2City: goes nuts, votes to give them whatever they want.
3:Team: sells off all expensive players and rakes in HUGE profits from new stadium with fewer seats and more corporate "boxes"
4:Fans wait in forever for another decent team to be formed.
SOP as the military calls it
Posted by: Ragnar Danneskjold | February 25, 2012 at 01:58 AM