Two competing ballot measures to decide the future of 166 acres of city-owned Mission Valley land attracted a lot of campaign dollars, but one of the initiatives dominated on election night.
The measures proposed to redevelop the former Qualcomm Stadium site after the Chargers football team decided in January 2017 to leave San Diego for Los Angeles. San Diego State University’s football team still plays there.
The SoccerCity campaign wanted to build a major league soccer stadium without using taxpayer dollars and without a guarantee that a major league team would come to San Diego. The SDSU West campaign hoped to build a western campus for San Diego State. Both proposals included a river park, retail and housing units.
Voters could choose whether to support both measures, one of them or neither of them on the ballot. The SoccerCity campaign received 30 percent of voter support, while the SDSU West campaign received 55 percent, leaving SDSU West victorious.
Both sides had millions of dollars in support from housing developers.
The SoccerCity campaign raised more than $7.4 million, primarily from a few wealthy donors. The biggest funder was Michael Stone, president of FS Investors, who donated about $3 million.
The SDSU West campaign raised more than $2.4 million and was backed by a campaign opposing SoccerCity, which raised another $4 million. The anti-SoccerCity campaign was funded primarily by H.G. Fenton and Sudberry Properties.
Mission Valley precincts supported SDSU West with between 51 percent and 56 percent of the vote, according to inewsource’s maps of election results. SDSU West also won in Otay Mesa, Logan Heights, Mission Bay, La Jolla and Miramar. Residents living near the SDSU campus supported the measure.
SoccerCity won precincts in San Ysidro and the San Pasqual Valley. Some neighborhoods voted against both measures, including parts of Point Loma and Clairemont.
The registrar’s office is continuing to count 490,000 mail-in and provisional ballots. The office has 30 days from the election to certify the official results.
Click here to see precincts results on San Diego’s stadium initiatives — Measure E and Measure G — in the Nov. 6, 2018, election.
inewsource data reporter Jill Castellano contributed to this report. inewsource is an independent nonprofit partner of KPBS.
