In the battle to take over the city’s Mission Valley stadium site, Measure G, the SDSU West initiative, prevailed with 55 percent of votes in favor of the campus expansion, while rival Measure E, the SoccerCity initiative, grabbed just 30 percent approval.

Measure E and Measure G each sought to redevelop the Mission Valley site with a stadium, housing, commercial projects and a public park along the San Diego River. While the plans resemble each other in some respects, they differ in many facets.

If both initiatives had received more than 50 percent of the vote, the measure with the most votes would have prevailed. If neither had crossed the 50-percent threshold, the city would likely have solicited proposals for redevelopment.


Only Measure G, with 100 percent of precincts reporting on Wednesday morning, was able to secure enough votes to win.

In the battle to take over the city’s Mission Valley stadium site, Measure G wins with 55 percent of votes in favor of the measure, while rival Measure E garners just 30 percent approval.

“When we started this, we were way behind. (SoccerCity) had already filed their initiative; they got their signatures. They were trying to force a special election through City Council,” said former city manager Jack McGrory, who is a prominent member of the steering committee behind SDSU West. “We decided, instead of just opposing them, we would do our own initiative, and we would try to build the biggest network and coalition to support this. And we got every major endorsement in this town.


“All we’re doing is saying, city sell San Diego State the land at fair market value. Then, San Diego State has to go through a normal land-use process with a full environmental review and not jam something down the throats of the voters. That’s what this community saw in Measure E. They were getting jammed.”

If adopted, Measure G changes the city’s municipal code so that the city can sell the land to the university. The mayor would be responsible for negotiating the sale price and terms, with any deal first requiring an environmental review and City Council approval. The length of the process is unknown and could take years, though McGrory, who joined SDSU West supporters at the US Grant’s Bivouac Ballroom on Tuesday evening, said it would be “fast.”


The mood at the US Grant was celebratory after initial results came in, with the Aztec band entertaining the crowd following remarks from SDSU President Adela de la Torre.

Meanwhile, the mood at the other camp wasn’t as upbeat.

Nick Stone, project manager for SoccerCity, addressed SoccerCity supporters at East Village Tavern and Bowl just before 9 p.m. and thanked them for their support. He wasn’t ready to concede, though he did say that the odds didn’t look good for the soccer-centric proposal.


“It has been a hell of a journey,” Stone told the crowd. “I’ve got to be honest, there were a lot of highs, and a lot of lows. We got a thousand of you to show up at City Council meetings three times. Not once. Not twice. But three different times. ... And there have been literally thousands of you who have volunteered and stuck with us for the course of the past 21 months. For that, from the very bottom of my heart, all I can say is, thank you.”

On the chance that both proposals fail at the polls, the team behind the SoccerCity initiative said Tuesday evening that it would not participate in a city process to redevelop the land.

“We overwhelmingly believe Major League Soccer is gone from the city of San Diego if we lose, which is sad,” Stone told the Union-Tribune.


However, the university’s athletic director John David Wicker, optimistic about SDSU’s opportunity to buy the stadium land, said an MLS franchise would still be in play should SDSU West succeed.

“On the athletic side, we will reach out to the MLS, and potentially the (United Soccer League), to talk about potential partnerships that might be available,” Wicker said. “We’re not going to go out and buy a team, but we are looking to engage the MLS and see if they have an ownership group in mind for San Diego.”

The university’s proposed 35,000-seat stadium, while only conceptual at this juncture, could be designed to accommodate a professional soccer team, he added.


The stadium brawl first started as the then San Diego Chargers considered a move to Los Angeles. In 2016, La Jolla-based private investment firm FS Investors kick-started conversations with Mayor Kevin Faulconer about redeveloping the stadium property to lure a Major League Soccer franchise to the region. The firm also recruited the support of SDSU; the parties were, at the time, together contemplating a joint-use stadium for a professional soccer team and the Aztecs.

By early 2017, the relationship between the investor group and the university soured over a reported dispute around land costs. But FS Investors pushed forward with its SoccerCity initiative.

Now known as Measure E, it proposes the 99-year lease and privately funded development of 253 acres, and includes a specific development plan that provides for either a professional soccer stadium, or a joint-use football and soccer stadium. It also calls for a 34-acre river park, 12 acres of sports fields and 9 acres of neighborhood parks, 2.4 million square feet of office space, 740,000 square feet of retail space, 4,800 multi-family residential units and 450 hotel rooms. It includes an option to reserve 16 acres of land for a second stadium to be used by a professional football team.


Measure E eventually received endorsements from the North San Diego Business Chamber, Mayor Kevin Faulconer and Councilman Scott Sherman.

In September of 2017, a newly formed group of university supporters, known as “Friends of SDSU” and spearheaded by McGrory, emerged with their own ballot measure.

SDSU West, or Measure G, proposes the sale of 132 acres at the Mission Valley stadium site to the university for public, government or commercial purposes that promote higher education. The measure does not contain a specific site plan; that would be engineered after the election through what’s called a Campus Master Plan revision process.


But SDSU has said that, should it get to buy the land, it would build SDSU Mission Valley. The university’s vision for a western campus includes a 35,000-seat stadium, 89 total acres of open space (including a 34-acre river park owned by city), 4,500 faculty and market-rate housing units, 1.6 million square feet of office space, 95,000 square feet of neighborhood-serving retail stores and 400 hotel rooms spread across two hotels.

Over the course of the campaign, Measure G secured the endorsements of a number of organizations, including The Lincoln Club of San Diego County, Sierra Club, San Diego County Democratic Party, the League of Women Voters and the San Diego Police Officers Association. City Council President Myrtle Cole along with council members Chris Ward, David Alvarez, Barbara Bry and Lorie Zapf also publicly backed the SDSU West plan.

The competing camps have waged a multi-million-dollar war of words through print, television, digital and social media ads.


As of Oct. 20, SoccerCity had amassed an $8.9 million war chest through cash contributions to the campaign. The primary backer is Michael Stone, the founder of FS Investors and an active participant in a number of charities and institutions locally and nationally. He also serves on the Dean’s Advisory Council at The Rady School of Business at UCSD. Other major donors include Steve Altman, retired president of Qualcomm.

Meanwhile, SDSU West had pooled $2.6 million in cash contributions as of the same date. The booster group also had help from an anti-SoccerCity campaign, funded by Mission Valley developers H.G. Fenton Company and Sudberry Properties. It collected $4.8 million in cash.

The initiatives have pushed the city into uncharted waters. California voters have never forced a land negotiation of this kind, as noted by the city attorney, who sued unsuccessfully on behalf of the city to remove both measures from the ballot. The city attorney could, with City Council approval, still challenge the legality of Measure G, should it prevail, although no lawsuit is expected immediately. However, independent parties could also challenge the legality, using the city attorney’s previous arguments.


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jennifer.vangrove@sduniontribune.com (619) 293-1840 Twitter: @jbruin

UPDATES:

8:31 p.m.: This article was updated with additional details.


8:51 p.m.: This article was updated with additional details.

9:17 p.m.: This article was updated with additional details.

10:15 p.m.: This article was updated with additional details.


11:40 p.m.: This article was updated with additional details.

The article was originally published at 8:20 p.m.