Transportation key to NFL stadium in Oceanside

The viability of building an NFL stadium in Oceanside depends on the parking and transportation needed to accommodate 60,000 fans on game days, San Diego Chargers and city officials agreed Thursday after a two-hour meeting.

"It clearly all comes back to traffic and the question of how you can manage traffic," said Mark Fabiani, the team's lead negotiator.

Fabiani met in San Marcos with a group of North County business leaders earlier in the day to talk about the Chargers' interest in Oceanside as a possible site for a new stadium before sitting down with Oceanside staffers for more detailed talks.

Chargers and city officials have zeroed in on the approximately 70-acre, city-owned golf course near the intersection of Interstate 5 and Oceanside Boulevard as a possible stadium site.

The Chargers want to leave aging Qualcomm Stadium in Mission Valley within the next decade for a new state-of the art facility that could generate more money. Team officials have said they want to stay in San Diego County and have identified Chula Vista, National City and Oceanside as potential homes.

Thursday was the second time that Fabiani met with Oceanside officials after the team and city expressed interest at the start of the year in considering a stadium on the Center City Golf Course, also known as Goat Hill because of its steep terrain.

"A lot of important issues and potential constraints need to be worked through," City Attorney John Mullen said after the meeting with Fabiani. "Both sides will work in good faith to try and overcome the issues."

Mullen and Fabiani said the city and team will need to spend the next couple of weeks studying parking and transportation options for a stadium.

Team officials have said that one reason they're interested in the Oceanside site is because of its proximity to Interstate 5 and several rail lines.

The 22-mile Sprinter light-rail running between Escondido and Oceanside will stop near the proposed stadium site ---- the rail is scheduled to start running at the end of this year ---- and many residents could take coastal trains from San Diego, Orange or Los Angeles counties to Oceanside and then take the Sprinter to the stadium.

Despite the rail lines, some residents living near the golf course, ringed with homes, parkland and businesses, have complained that a stadium would flood the area with traffic on game days.

Fabiani has said traffic is also an important issue for the team because the Chargers want to make sure fans can conveniently reach games.

As a result, the number of parking spaces needed for a stadium in Oceanside will determine if the golf course site is large enough for the Chargers, Fabiani said.

"We are doomed if we have to park thousands of cars on the site," Fabiani said.

More parking spaces would mean less room available on the site for houses, shops or an entertainment complex that the team is hoping to build. The team wants a city to provide it land for a stadium and a development, saying revenues from a development could help pay for the stadium.

Mullen said that Fabiani mentioned in Thursday's meeting the possibility of building an entertainment complex with related shops and activities on the site. But Mullen said the team has no site plan and needs to work with architects, engineers, and land planners to determine what type of development could work on the site.

Mullen said the type of development will impact how much parking is needed. Fabiani said, however, the type of development will also depend a lot on how much parking needs to be included in the site.

He said Qualcomm Stadium has about 16,000 parking spots spread across 120 acres, making it one of the largest parking lots in North America.

Despite all the stadium parking, Fabiani said that about 30 percent of fans have used the trolley to get to team games.

"We already get a significant number of fans on the trolley, and that is a very high number for the NFL," Fabiani said.

He said the only way to increase the number of fans who take public transportation to games is to make it more convenient.

Offering more trains with shorter waits and lines could cut back on the number of parking spots needed at the stadium, Fabiani said.

He said the city will have to look at all the available parking along rail lines, how many fans the rail lines could accommodate and how much parking is near the site.

The city and team also want to get an update from the California Department of Transportation about the state agency's plan to widen Interstate 5 from eight to 14 lanes in the area, Fabiani said.

Before heading to Oceanside for the afternoon meeting, Fabiani spoke to members of the San Diego North County Economic Development Council about the team's site search.

The business group with 100 members is based in San Marcos and promotes economic development in the North County area.

The group has formed a committee to help the Chargers find a home in the region, and the group's leaders said Thursday that they were impressed with the team's commitment both to try to stay in San Diego and to build a stadium without a significant public subsidy.

After hearing Fabiani's presentation, group members said they were excited about the possibility of the team coming to Oceanside.

"It would be a great coup for North County to have the Chargers here," said Scott Strand, owner of an Escondido production company who was chosen Tuesday to serve as chairman of the group's Chargers committee. "There is probably a lot of money on the table for the city who gets an NFL team, and Oceanside should really push for the Chargers."