While the Chargers had been expected to unveil their new downtown stadium plan on Thursday, that went by the boards for some further tweaking – and a potential "Plan B".
The team had "self-imposed" a Thursday deadline to formally confirm what's already been leaked by insiders.
But NBC 7’s Derek Togerson also has learned that the Bolts are leaning toward staying for the 2017 season, if that's what it might take to get an East Village stadium approved.
We got a wait-and-see reading on all this from Mayor Kevin Faulconer.
"As we look at the financial aspects of it, as we look at the short-term and the long-term,” he said in an interview, “that's the kind of conversation we have to have with all the stakeholders around the table. San Diegans are good at coming together."
Among the unfinished business at Chargers Park, according to sources, is the completion of "spectacular" new site renderings and video animation to replace visuals that have been displayed by media outlets for a couple of years now.
Meantime, the team knows its East Village game plan and big room-tax increase face the likelihood of pushback from the hotel industry.
There’s opposition, too, from East Village visionaries who say the stadium and convention center complex would crowd out the prospect of establishing a high-tech innovation and employment hub there, anchored by a university's satellite campus.
"It could be UCSD, it could be San Diego State, could be a combination -- could be somebody totally different,” says Wayne Raffesberger, a longtime activist in downtown issues.
“That would spur businesses that want to locate next to them,” Raffesberger told NBC 7. “We can't even imagine what they could be -- that's the future. But those are where the jobs are being created in this country. That's tomorrow's economy."
In the event that the Chargers' proposal is hung up by legal issues or a loss at the ballot box in November, a potential Plan B is to commit to playing the 2017 season here -- and point toward a special election in June of next year, under an NFL option to delay moving to Los Angeles.
