Chargers Plan to Take Stadium to the Voters

Despite their completed plan for a Super Bowl-quality football stadium, public park and urban village, the San Diego Chargers are finding it “extremely difficult” to attract development partners willing to make an investment in the project because of the city’s political uncertainty, a team spokesman said Monday.

“There are a lot of people interested, but the problem is the situation downtown is so chaotic,” said Mark Fabiani, point man for the Charger stadium proposal.

“You don’t know who the mayor is, if the city’s going to declare bankruptcy, whether the city’s going to be able to sell bonds.

“We’re continuing to work with developers that we’ve already talked to. We just have to keep at it.”

Fabiani said it is essential for the Chargers to secure a development partner to offset the cost of the project, which in its current form would require about $3 billion in construction costs.

In order to get their stadium proposal on the ballot in time for next year’s elections, the Chargers plan to bypass the San Diego City Council and take the issue directly to voters.

The election takes place Nov. 7, 2006 -- roughly four months after the deadline to put proposals on the ballot.

To qualify the measure for the ballot, the team intends to collect by July 3 more than 60,000 signatures from registered voters in San Diego.

The Chargers are proposing a stadium and mixed-use development on a 166-acre site on which Qualcomm Stadium now sits. They would pay for a state-of-the-art stadium at a cost of about $450 million; a 30-acre park along a river; and about $175 million in transportation improvements such as new roads and freeway interchanges around the stadium.

In exchange, the Chargers are asking for 60 acres of the site on which to develop a dense urban village, including high-rise condominium complexes, as well as all the necessary permits and zoning licenses.