Suddenly a new downtown stadium for the San Diego Chargers is a possibility. For that stadium to become a reality, though, there areobstacles to overcome. Mark Fabiani, who serves as special counsel to the president of the Chargers, identifies those obstacles as creating a private funding package, determining if the land east of Petco Park is viable for development, creating architectural plans and getting legal approval for development, and that means ultimately winning the hearts and minds of San Diegans for any proposed stadium project.

A downtown stadium is a possibility because there is currently good communication between Mayor Jerry Sanders, city officials, and the Chargers. Fabiani believes communications were renewed because Mike Aguirre no longer holds the office of city attorney. “Over the previous four years with Aguirre in office, people from the City of San Diego would say to us repeatedly, ‘We would like to help, we would like to meet with you, but the minute we do, we will be subjected to criticism by Aguirre ... and it is just not worth it!’” As soon as Aguirre left office last December, the City and the Chargers resumed talks. “We met with the mayor and his staff in early January. We have continued to meet with his staff throughout the year.”

Now that the city and the Chargers have overcome the Aguirre obstacle, Fabiani says: “The biggest obstacle has always been the biggest obstacle ... how to privately finance a project of this scope.”

“Downtown has it advantages: It is a redevelopment district, and it is cheaper to build downtown because you do not have to create the parking, the roads, the freeway on and off ramps and the trolley stops. Everything is there downtown, so it is less expensive to build there. Nonetheless, it is still a gigantic project in the neighborhood of one billion dollars, and no NFL owner has ever privately financed a project of this size.”

Even as financing remains a major barrier, the Chargers are moving forward with anticipation that this obstacle will be overcome. “Architects are working through various options," says Fabiani. "We met last weekend for several hours, but the bottom line is, until we know this is financible, it probably does not make sense to be distributing drawings to people and get their hopes up.”

Another major obstacle to overcome is determining whether east of Petco Park is a viable building location. In order for a stadium to be built in that location, the transit center would need to be moved. Also, that land has some potential environmental concerns because buses have heavily used it, and that can often bring petroleum and oil spills that would be costly to clean up.

Finally, the Chargers will have to overcome the hurdle of getting legal approval to begin construction. “It is not inevitable that something needs to go to the ballot," says Fabiani. "In fact, the city council, the City of San Diego and the County Board of Supervisors could approve something like this. Having said that, it is awful easy to qualify something for the ballot these days in California. Sometimes if you do not put your measure on the ballot, someone who is against your measure will put a measure on the ballot to block you. So oftentimes, even though you do not have to go on the ballot, it makes sense from a political and tactical point of view to go on the ballot. For that reason, we have always assumed that for one reason or another, we would be on the ballot, but it is not something that has to happen legally.”

Whether a new downtown stadium is ultimately approved by an elected board of politicians or by a vote, the Chargers will need the support of the public behind any project. That is where all of San Diego needs to have input.

“The biggest thing that people can do who are obviously busy with their everyday lives is to weigh in on this issue electronically," says Fabiani. "What I mean by that is anytime a story is published anywhere ... it is very easy to weigh in with a couple of sentences to interject some facts or to interject your point into the debate. Elected officials read those comments. Staff members of elected officials read those comments. It gives them a sense of where the public is on an issue. And sometimes, if you just sit back and do not do anything, some of the people who comment in stories tend to be against things. There is nothing wrong with that; it just seems to be the way that is. So we encourage people who are for our ideas to weigh in. It does not take long, and you can do it as unobtrusively as you like, and you can be surprised on what a difference that can make. You can influence an online discussion. You can educate a lot of people about the facts as you see them, and you can also influence elected officials.”

Even with so many obstacles, Fabiani remains confident that with continued perseverance, a new privately funded stadium is obtainable for San Diego and the Chargers. “It is just a difficult thing to get done, but we just have to keep reminding people and sometimes reminding ourselves that no other NFL owner has ever done this. So there is no reason to be discouraged.”