As the Chargers’ $1.8 billion stadium-convention center heads toward the November ballot, an alternate vision will be presented Saturday for downtown’s East Village.

The so-called “East Village South Focus Plan” envisions apartment towers, high-tech start-ups, innovation-economy office compounds, new parks and plazas and maybe a convention annex or arena.

“It’s a long-term plan,” said downtown architect Rob Quigley, designer of the Central Library and outspoken critic of the stadium proposal because of its potentially negative impact on surrounding properties and East Village life. “Our attempt is to try to create a very thoughtful, solid plan that accommodates lots of uses. We believe it will be market driven. The idea is to get multiple developers versus one developer doing everything.”

The presentation will be held at 10 a.m. at the Central Library and is free and open to the public.


× Architect Rob Quigley on stadium plans

Developed over the last few months by a team of volunteer architects and planners, with input from developers and the general public, the site could include more than 4.5 million square feet of development — enough to build:

▪ 3,114 apartments and condos

▪ 1.1 million square feet of offices


▪ 300,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space

▪ 350,000 square feet of meeting space, flexible enough to host conventions, academic classrooms and community events.

The cost at $400 per square foot: $1.8 billion, nearly identical to the Chargers’ price tag.

Instead of the Chargers’ proposed stadium/convention center annex, East Village activists propose a mix of low- and how-rise office and residential buildings and park space on Tailgate Park and the MTS bus yard. (East Village People)


The new plan lacks a private sponsor, like the NFL and Chargers, willing to underwrite $650 million, or $1.15 billion from a proposed increase in the hotel room taxes — the key sources for the stadium-convention complex.

On the other hand, the alternative plan could generate a projected $55.2 million in annual state and local taxes from the same site, far more than a public sports facility would. The alternate also speaks of producing 5,590 permanent jobs paying as much as $447 million a year.

The concept began its gestation last fall when the Chargers seemed on their way out of town to a new stadium in Los Angeles.

Two community workshops were held at the NewSchool of Architecture and Design to gauge community preferences and then Quigley and other volunteer architects pulled out their pencils and sketched out various possibilities. University of San Diego real estate economics professor Norm Miller had one of his classes generate financial projections.


“This document is no more than a framework for implementing the community vision and will need to be vetted and completed by professional planners at Civic San Diego (the downtown planning agency) through a public process,” the plan says.

But already it has drawn some interest from Mayor Kevin Faulconer, who was briefed most recently last week by Quigley and NewSchool professor Mike Stepner, a former long-time city planner and city architect.

“He was being very poker-faced about it,” Quigley said.

Faulconer also has taken no position so far on the Chargers’ plan.


Kris Michell, president and CEO of the Downtown San Diego Parternship business group, was briefed this week.

“She was very pragmatic,” he said. “How is it going to happen, how do you put a mechanism in place to allow this to be implemented.”

She also inquired if there’s room for an 18,000-seat sports arena, such as was recently proposed and rejected by the port district for the Seaport Village redevelopment site.

Historically, downtowns around the country, including San Diego, have relied on big “catalytic” projects — convention centers, stadiums, shopping centers, mass transit — to jump start new development.


Proponents of the Chargers stadium said their project could have the same spinoff effect as Petco Park a decade ago.

But Quigley’s group, facetiously called “East Village People,” is worried that the stadium would impose a giant, little-used sports facility onto the downtown grid and forestall other opportunities their plan envisions, especially high-paying startup tech jobs suited to the urban-minded millennials filling downtown apartments and brew pubs. Currently, about 70 percent of working residents commute out of downtown to jobs in North County and elsewhere.

“That doesn’t work, that’s not sustainable,” said developer David Malmuth who previewed the focus plan Friday at Quigley’s office, around the corner from the Central Library.

The plan obviously is DOA if voters approve the Chargers plan. But if that goes down to defeat, the coast is clear for another route to East Village’s future.


East Village planners say the first phase would focus on Tailgate Park, the parking lot serving Petco Park.

The city would seek a master developer to buy the property, install underground parking and build “Library Park.” The developer then would be free to build the first structure, planned at the moment as 157,000 square feet for an unspecified use at 14th Street and K streets.

Three other sites at Park Boulevard and Imperial Avenue would be sold off for 850,000 square feet of unspecified development — or a convention center annex or arena.

Seven years later, the second phase would tackle the MTS bus yard to the east through a similar process: A mix of high-rise residential towers and low-rise office buildings with big floor plates favored by high-tech, collaboration-minded tech startup companies.


The chosen developers would cover the $200 million cost of the land, enough to relocate the MTS facility, and recoup their investment by constructing one of the buildings and selling the remaining sites to others.

Key to the overall plan is the preservation of view corridors, inclusion of parks and plazas, and a link to Barrio Logan signaled by an obelisk or other dramatic piece of public art where 14th Street makes a sharp turn into Newton Avenue. That spot is being dubbed “El Nudillo” or “The Knuckle.” Another link to a neighboring community, Sherman Heights, would be accomplished by building a lid or cover over Interstate 5 between Island Avenue and J Street.

The plan acknowledges the continuing problem of homelessness in East Village and proposes including affordable housing units in residential projects and connecting them to support services.

“Ignoring homelessness during the planning process simply pushes the problem to the next neighborhood,” the plan says.


One other element in the plan would focus on educational institutions beyond the schools and colleges already present downtown. However, proponents do not count on UC San Diego to suddenly open a big downtown quad as an adjunct to its Torrey Pines Mesa home campus.

“You start with a small presence, test it out and find out what works,” Malmuth said. “Ultimately its the institution that decides it’s in their interest to be downtown.”

UCSD Extension has already announced a partnership with the Downtown San Diego Partnership to scheduled classes at the partnership’s offices. Whether that morphs into something bigger remains to be seen.