On Tuesday, March 13th, San Diego State University's Corky McMillin Center for Real Estate will host a breakfast and networking event, followed by a presentation by John Kratzer, President and CEO of JMI Realty and JD Wicker, the school's Athletic Director, outlining the university's Vision for Mission Valley. Tickets for the event can be purchased here, starting at $45.00 per plate.

This is not the first such event, and it is surely not the last as the procession to the November midterm election continues. In April of 2016, a similar event was held, in the exact same chamber as the forthcoming gathering. The subject on that day nearly two years ago was the university's desire to expand westward into Mission Valley, and the same topic will inevitably be the focal point of the discussion in just a few short weeks. 

The renderings released back in 2016 have evolved in the intervening years, but the basic premise remains the same. SDSU desires the property underneath and surrounding the San Diego County Credit Union Stadium in order to facilitate the expansion of its campus. Due to the nature of the Citizen's Initiative process, the university cannot publicly take a position on a ballot initiative, and as such, the proposal has been put forth by a collection of individuals who call themselves the Friends of SDSU. Several of the individuals who count themselves as friends of the university have backgrounds in large scale development projects such as the mooted SDSU West expansion.

The Friends of SDSU aim to compete with the SoccerCity proposal that aims to redevelop the same parcel of land to include a joint-use stadium for Major League Soccer and Aztec football, housing units for students and other residents, a $40 million river park, and much more. Throughout the process, the members of the Friends of SDSU have maintained that they will take no part in the eventual development of the Mission Valley site in the event their initiative wins out, but noticeably absent from the list of Friends, are the names John Moores and John Kratzer.

“We have a rival group of developers who are proposing their own plan,” SoccerCity's Nick Stone told the Union-Tribune regarding SDSU backers. “We know it’s a private development plan because one of the members of the construction team has said that all of the development will be done by private developers.”

It remains to be seen what exactly the role of JMI Realty is in the SDSU West project, but one can assume that since Moores and co have yet to declare the determination to abstain from the development process, that there is an interest in participating more actively than so far indicated. 

The Agenda for the March 13th meeting is as follows:

7:30-8am - Breakfast and Networking

8-9am - Program

9-9:30am Q&A

The SDSU Mission Valley envisions a site that would serve higher education, the public good, and the community's goals by using a mixed-use, medium-density development that is transit-oriented, and expands the university's educational, research, entrepreneurial, and technology transfer programs. The program will be a discussion of planned projects San Diego State University envisions for the Mission Valley Site.

It is safe to assume that somewhere between 8:00-9:00 am, the role of JMI Realty will become more clear.