‘City taxpayers shouldn’t have to help pay for SDSU expansion’

By Rene Kaprielian / Op-Ed SD Union-Tribune / March 6, 2026 

Once again, the city of San Diego faces financial upheaval as it attempts to backfill a huge budget deficit caused by historically poor management and misguided priorities.

Our mayor and City Council remain focused on two predictable but ultimately futile strategies: raising fees and taxes and/or cutting services, including hours at libraries and park and recreation centers.

Regrettably, our elected representatives rarely question the financial giveaways to large entities and industries that contribute to the imbalance.  Whether it’s long-term franchise agreements with SDG&E or bad real estate deals, these commitments translate to higher rates and taxes for residents and less money for needed existing infrastructure improvements.

San Diego State University is a major recipient of this misplaced generosity. The city has given SDSU carte blanche in its expansion in the College Area and is silent on the lack of progress in developing the former Qualcomm Stadium site. As a state university, SDSU is not required to adhere to local land use laws on land it owns. When the city deeds land to SDSU it can no longer collect property tax, development impact fees, or control the size and scope of the project, while saddling taxpayers with substantial infrastructure costs. These subsidies include fire protection and major improvements to intersections and streets.

In 2018, SDSU and its development partners persuaded voters to let the city sell the Qualcomm Stadium site to the university. Voters were told SDSU’s main campus has reached capacity, and the Mission Valley site would provide space for a “vibrant, mixed-use, transit-oriented development” and would increase ridership at the Qualcomm trolley station, two stops from SDSU’s main campus.

The sale was finalized in 2020 for the 135-acre site. It’s now obvious that SDSU’s priority was a new stadium for its football team, which it quickly built in two years. But in the three-plus years since Snapdragon Stadium opened, no housing has been built at the site.

And while SDSU delays construction of promised student housing, the city pushes high-density housing policies in single-family neighborhoods in the name of a “housing crisis.”

Regrettably, the Metropolitan Transit System, which operates the trolley, has said nothing publicly about SDSU’s delay in developing the Qualcomm site, which when built-out could generate thousands of daily trips.  Instead, MTS looks to taxpayers and riders to fill its ever-widening budget deficit.

Meanwhile, SDSU gained approval from the California State University Board of Trustees to start the first phase of the nearly $1 billion “Evolve” student housing project. Unfortunately, this project wasn’t at the Qualcomm site but at the end of 55th Street in a high-fire zone three-quarters of a mile from SDSU’s main campus.

SDSU persuaded the city to deed to it the north end of 55th Street (approximately a block and a half) so it can develop five 13-story and one nine-story dorm buildings, to house 4,500 students.

But SDSU left the city (and taxpayers) with ownership of what will be a super-congested intersection just 50 yards to the south that must be completely redesigned and rebuilt to handle the expected daily flow of 4,500 pedestrians and vehicles. Plus, it’s the same intersection the university said will be available as an alternative evacuation route in the event of a wildfire.

Nowhere in SDSU’s Evolve proposal is there a pedestrian mobility plan or other infrastructure upgrades to move this many people. The significant cost for these improvements and increased fire protection will be added to the city budget and paid for by taxpayers.

Mobility also suffers because the Evolve project is on the opposite end of campus — and a nearly 20-minute walk — from the campus trolley station. That distance will discourage student use of public transit and is contrary to state laws (such as Senate Bill 79) that encourage and incentivize high-density housing adjacent to bus and trolley lines.

Ironically, SDSU owns asphalt parking lots and old dorm buildings less than a five-minute walk from the on-campus trolley stop. Arguably, that’s a perfect location for high-density student housing, which would fulfill the state’s mandate for transit-oriented density and help achieve the city’s desire for an “urban village.”

It’s time for the city of San Diego to get out of the infrastructure subsidy business, and rethink, along with SDSU, the remaining phases of the Evolve project. Otherwise, the city will remain mired in budget upheaval for years to come.

Rene Kaprielian has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from SDSU and has been a resident of San Diego for 55 years.