Timing is everything, and the recent USA-Serbia friendly at Qualcomm Stadium gave proponents of an MLS expansion team in San Diego a chance to show off their plan.
Soccer America Daily had this article:
They include: a $200 million soccer stadium, part of a $1 billion redevelopment at the site of Qualcomm in Mission Valley.
On Monday, the group led by FS Investors founder Mike Stone, unveiled renderings of the stadium and plans for the development.
A key to the deal: no public funding for the stadium on land purchased from the city.
Other moving parts:
Determining the fair-market value for the land (by a third-party);
Convincing San Diego State, which would use the stadium for its football team, to chip in half the cost (FS Investors say they would later donate their half of the stadium to SDSU);
Bypassing a November 2018 public vote on the stadium project by getting approval of the city council (triggered by a voter petition).
MLS Commissioner Don Garber recently said the NFL Chargers' decision to leave San Diego for Los Angeles made San Diego an attractive expansion target.
A San Diego Union-Tribune/10News poll found 70 percent of respondents supported the soccer stadium project.
"This is an exciting concept that could welcome Major League Soccer to San Diego without public subsidy, provide a home for Aztecs football and create a long-awaited river park," San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer said in a statement. "I look forward to seeing the final plan."
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