May 06--Final cleanup of the old landfill site in Carson where the San Diego Chargers and Oakland Raiders want to build a stadium should be funded by August.
The Carson City Council on Tuesday night approved the sale of $50.5 million in bonds to finish stalled environmental work on the former Cal Compact landfill, along the 405 freeway. They also approved a deal for a city authority to take possession of the site after a Chargers subsidiary buys it from real estate firm Starwood Capital, which had planned a shopping center there. That deal, which in escrow, has been delayed by paperwork but is set to close soon, according to a Chargers attorney.
The city had been obligated to fund the cleanup under a deal with a prior owner of the site. Under this agreement, a city authority will own the site and can sell it to another developer if the stadium falls through. The work, which can't begin until there's a development plan for the site, should take about 18 months to complete, state environmental officials have said.
The bond sale, which should be closed by August, is one of several transactions that Carson officials and the teams still need to work out before the Chargers or Raiders can ask the NFL to relocate later this year. Negotiations on those are ongoing. City attorney Sunny Soltani said the stadium authority will pay rent to the city starting at $1.2 million per year, and eventually climbing to $3.1 million. The city has agreed to levy no new ticket or parking taxes on NFL events at the stadium. Under terms of the initiative adopted last month by the City Council, no general budget money will go into building or maintaining the stadium.
