For decades, the San Diego River flowed past Qualcomm Stadium, hidden from the tailgate parties and game-day crowds by a fence and acres of asphalt.
Rob Hutsel still remembers how little there was to see.
“There was a fence and then there was some green thing behind it,” said Hutsel, co-founder, president and CEO of the San Diego River Park Foundation. “A lot of times people parked on the other side of the river and walked across to avoid paying for parking, until the fence went up.
“There was really no connection with arguably San Diego’s greatest natural treasure.”
Thousands of cars filled the parking lot on game days. For generations, the stadium was a gathering place; its sprawling asphalt surroundings offered little reason to linger between events. When it rained, runoff carried motor oil, litter and other pollutants toward the river. Hutsel recalls contamination beneath the asphalt and water entering the river without adequate filtration.
Today, part of that landscape is a 34-acre public park. Trails wind past playing fields and native vegetation. Landscaped basins filter stormwater. Families gather at playgrounds; walkers and cyclists follow a two-mile loop.
“It is wonderful to see … dozens of acres of green space where there once was a sea of cars,” Hutsel said.
From an ecological perspective, he called the transformation “a game changer for the river.”
When the Chargers left for Los Angeles in 2017, few imagined what their departure could make possible.
For the past four weeks, this series has examined the fans who abandoned the team, those who stayed loyal, the economic consequences for cities losing NFL teams and the businesses forced to adapt. The loss wounded civic pride and individual livelihoods, but San Diego’s economy kept growing.
The Chargers didn’t give San Diego 135 acres when they left. The city already owned the property, but their departure allowed residents to reconsider what belonged there.
Nearly a decade later, that choice is taking shape.
From football stadium to community gathering place
There is an irony at the center of SDSU Mission Valley: San Diego State initially wanted the Chargers to stay.
“I think we were in the ‘How can we help you stay?’ camp,” said Gina Jacobs, SDSU’s associate vice president for Mission Valley Development.
Jacobs has worked on the redevelopment since its earliest stages. She said the university had long expressed interest in the property, even contemplating a role in the old stadium.
Once the team left, SDSU pursued the land for expansion.
A heated 2018 ballot fight offered competing visions.
Measure E, the privately backed SoccerCity initiative, proposed a soccer stadium amid housing, businesses and parks.
Measure G, or SDSU West, envisioned a university expansion with a stadium, housing, research facilities and open space. Voters rejected SoccerCity, with 67.4% opposed, and approved SDSU West with 54.5% in favor. SDSU bought the land at fair market value in 2020.
Snapdragon Stadium opened two years later with 35,000 seats and ambitions beyond college football.
“We talked about it, not just as a football facility, but as something that was going to support soccer as well,” Jacobs said.
The venue now hosts San Diego Wave FC and San Diego FC, plus rugby, concerts and festivals.
The River Park opened in late 2023, years ahead of the stadium project’s required deadline. An existing MTS trolley stop provides access without a car.
SDSU estimates more than 400,000 park visits in 2025, based on cellphone-location data. Some visitors attended stadium events; others came for the fields, trails and playgrounds.
“It has exceeded my expectations in terms of usage,” Jacobs said, “and that’s before we have anyone living or working on the site.”
Hutsel, who has spent more than two decades advocating for the 52-mile San Diego River, welcomed earlier redevelopment proposals, too, including plans involving the Chargers and SoccerCity. River advocates had long wanted the public reconnected with the waterway.
“From a San Diego River Park Foundation and a personal perspective,” Hutsel said, “it’s really exciting, and it’s been a remarkable transformation over a relatively short period of time.”
The next phase is underway
The most visible evidence that SDSU Mission Valley is becoming something beyond a sports complex can be seen in the construction rising beside Snapdragon Stadium.
Avalon Mission Valley, which broke ground in August 2025, will contain 621 apartments and about 30,000 square feet of retail, including a planned grocery store. In May, SDSU and Chelsea Investment Corp. broke ground on Addison, a 126-unit affordable housing project.
Both are expected to welcome their first residents in early 2028.
In August, SDSU announced a proposed 250-residence senior living community. California also awarded $3.95 million for a National Security Hub intended to help launch the Innovation District.
Work began in September on the Fenton Parkway Bridge, a new high-water crossing for motorists, pedestrians and cyclists that’s scheduled for completion in fall 2027. Jacaranda Street reopened in July, another step in building the road network that will serve future residents and businesses.
The property isn’t a neighborhood yet, but it has moved beyond renderings. Jacobs hopes SDSU can announce roughly one new project annually.
“The transformation is taking place,” she said.
Building a place to live
Imagine Mission Valley a decade from now.
Where cars once gathered before kickoff, apartment buildings line busy streets. Residents pick up groceries on the way home from the trolley. Families gather beside the river. Restaurants depend on neighbors rather than the fortunes of a football schedule.
For that vision to work, people must be able to afford to live there.
SDSU plans up to 4,600 homes, with at least 10% reserved for affordable housing — roughly 460 units at full buildout. Addison, the first phase, will remain income-restricted for 55 years, with priority for eligible SDSU employees. Twenty units are reserved for people with intellectual or developmental disabilities.
Jacobs emphasized that affordable housing is advancing alongside market-rate projects, not waiting until the final phases. Another affordable phase is also planned.
Together with the proposed senior community, those projects could create a neighborhood spanning generations and income levels. But diversity on a master plan doesn’t guarantee affordability in a city struggling with housing costs.
Nor are construction schedules assured.
Jacobs acknowledged that rising costs and financing challenges have delayed some projects and required design adjustments.
“Certainly some timing has been affected just by those broader conditions,” she said.
Under SDSU’s public-private model, developers finance construction on university-owned land through long-term ground leases. The arrangement is designed to generate revenue for SDSU while preserving university ownership, but leaves development schedules vulnerable to market conditions.
Jacobs remains confident the university is honoring its commitments.
“The great news is we’ve executed on everything we said we would, from day one,” she said.
The biggest bet isn’t the stadium
Among the largest pieces of SDSU Mission Valley still to be built, the Innovation District could also be its most consequential economic investment: 1.6 million square feet of research laboratories, offices and collaborative space.
SDSU wants to connect university research and students with the region’s biotechnology, defense, cybersecurity and environmental science industries. The proposed first phase, with Lincoln Property Co., includes three buildings totaling roughly 315,000 square feet. SDSU plans to occupy space there alongside private tenants.
A partnership with the San Diego Community College District would expand pathways into science and technology careers. The National Security Hub would connect university researchers with defense companies and startups, with SDSU projecting it could help create more than 200 jobs.
Nearby, the One Water Laboratory, which broke ground in December 2025, will use the park’s stormwater systems to study watershed science and water treatment. Where cars once stood, students could learn to protect the river flowing beside them.
Jacobs said the university keeps returning to two questions: “What does San Diego need to be successful? What does San Diego State need to be successful?”
At full buildout, SDSU estimates Mission Valley could generate $3 billion in annual regional economic activity. The projection reflects an ambition extending well beyond the stadium: a neighborhood where housing, research, education and businesses generate economic activity throughout the year.
The potential importance of that broader investment becomes clearer about 120 miles north, in Inglewood.
What Inglewood shows
The Chargers’ move produced no obvious metropolitan-wide economic shock in San Diego or Los Angeles, consistent with decades of research showing the limited regional economic effects of sports franchises.
Inglewood tells a different story. Billions invested in SoFi Stadium and the surrounding Hollywood Park development produced measurable activity within the city — much of it before the Chargers played there.
Estimates show Inglewood’s construction jobs rose from 730 in 2016 to 1,263 in 2018 — 73% in two years. Accommodation and food-service employment grew just 2.6%, while overall city employment fell 3.9%.
That was a construction boom, not a Chargers-driven surge. SoFi and Hollywood Park broke ground in November 2016; the Chargers played in Carson through 2019. SoFi opened in 2020.
Later, Inglewood’s event economy became visible in tax receipts. Admissions-tax collections climbed from roughly $845,000 in fiscal 2018-19 to $20.75 million in 2021-22. Parking taxes rose from $1.24 million to $7.74 million by 2023-24.
Those gains can’t be credited to the Chargers alone. SoFi also hosts the Rams, concerts and major championship events. Nor do the figures establish how much net economic growth the investment created.
Economist Andrew Zimbalist, a leading researcher on sports economics, raised Inglewood as an exception to the conventional stadium model during an interview for an earlier installment of this series.
Considering the scale of private investment surrounding SoFi, Zimbalist said: “I can’t imagine that doesn’t have a positive macro impact in terms of generating some employment and generating output.”
He added an important qualifier: “That’s not the typical case.”
Inglewood isn’t a blueprint for SDSU, but it demonstrates a narrower point: The impact of billions invested in a concentrated district can be more visible than that of a football team playing eight or nine home games.
What surrounds a stadium may matter more than what happens inside it.
‘A catalyst … to think bigger and grander’
Hutsel admires the new park but fears residents and visitors could eventually love it “to death.” Growing demand could strain its capacity and restrict access.
“It’s really important that that park remain a community public park and meet the needs of the people that live and work and visit that area,” he said.
He also wants to know how the new landscape performs in serious storms. “One thing to pay attention to is what happens when it rains,” he said.
For Hutsel, restoring 8/10ths of a mile of a 52-mile river is an invitation to reconnect more of the waterway through Mission Valley. He hopes SDSU Mission Valley becomes “a catalyst for more to think bigger and grander.”
Jacobs has her own standard for success.
Ten or 15 years from now, she hopes San Diegans will conclude their trust in the university was justified — that the former stadium property fulfilled the promise voters endorsed when they approved its sale.
Where an old stadium once served the needs of a professional football team, an emerging neighborhood now offers San Diego an opportunity to build around the needs of its residents.
Editor’s note: Almost 10 years have passed since the Chargers ended their 56-year run in San Diego and moved to Los Angeles. Over the course of this NFL season, this series will trace the stadium fight and decisions that led to the move, revisit the fans and community left behind, assess the Chargers’ decade in Los Angeles and San Diego’s life without them, and explore whether the NFL could ever return.
