Proposals are to be opened Friday, July 10 – the public will then have 11 days to evaluate plans, submit feedback to guide the city’s choice
By David Garrick / San Diego Union-Tribune / July 9, 2020
San Diego residents on Friday can take virtual tours of up to four competing proposals to redevelop the city’s 48-acre sports arena property into a modern village, featuring entertainment, housing, retail shops and office buildings.
Each of the proposals will be featured on a special city website created to gather public feedback over 11 days, beginning Friday morning through Monday, July 20. The site is sandiego.gov/sportsarenaopenhouse.
A city “selection committee” will evaluate each of the proposals based on that public feedback and some other criteria, such as the experience of the developer and their financial capabilities.
“We’re really interested in getting public feedback, because whatever gets constructed there obviously is going to be there for the rest of our lifetimes,” said Cybele Thompson, the city’s director of real estate assets. “We want to make sure we get it right.”
San Diego has never previously gathered public input on competing responses to a city requests for proposals. Thompson said this project warrants such an approach. “There is a ton of interest in this site and what’s going to happen going forward,” she said. “Besides the (Mission Valley) stadium site, it was our last large redevelopment site.”
An unusual wrinkle in the process is a proposed November ballot measure which would lift the city’s coastal 30-foot height limit for the sports arena site and 850 adjacent acres, known as the Midway District. City officials allowed developers to submit separate proposals — one where the ballot measure succeeds and high-rise housing is allowed on the sports arena site, and one where it fails and all proposed buildings must not exceed 30 feet in height.
While four developers submitted proposals, Thompson said, it’s possible that fewer than four will be featured on the special website because city officials may have deemed one or more of the proposals “not responsive.”
For the remainder of this article, please go here.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
So where are the other proposals? 48 acres and the best the mayor could get are these two? He’s going to get is palm greased on this deal. Very sad but not unexpected. Everyone should have voted for Donna Frye when they had the chance and we would have a much better city in every aspect!
Juicy info in this reader article so I have to share
https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2020/jul/10/ticker-midway-new-soccer-city/
check this out in the article “To counter AEG and company, Malmuth and associates have retained the services of Laing Strategic Communication, run by ex-Jerry Sanders mayoral aide Rachel Laing and her husband Greg Block, a ex-Faulconer media aide, per a June 30 disclosure filing.”