San Diego — With Super Bowl XXXVII only about 40 weeks away, San Diego city officials are scrambling to figure out how to stage the game the way they said they would three years ago. As time runs short, crucial issues -- such as how much stadium seating will be available for the game and the location of the NFL Experience, a carnival-like event open to the public -- remain unresolved, say sources close to the situation. Worse yet, the prospect of mammoth traffic jams and parking hassles seems increasingly certain, as the U.S. Secret Service demands that a large portion of the stadium parking lot be turned into a secured no-man's-land.

It was May 26, 1999, when the city won its effort to host the event, outbidding rival South Florida with a pledge to have more than 70,000 seats in Qualcomm Stadium, along with new luxury suites and expanded game-day parking. The bid, coming after San Francisco lost the game due to fears its new stadium wouldn't be ready in time, was a hastily prepared affair, secretly cobbled together by then-mayor Susan Golding, assistant city manager Bruce Herring, and a booster group influenced by Copley Newspapers "Editor in Chief" Herb Klein.

"We are once again on the Super Bowl circuit," Golding said in a brief statement from Atlanta, where she had gone to make the city's pitch to NFL owners. "The success of our last Super Bowl shows that San Diego is the ideal host. This event will be even better."

According to a budget submitted to the NFL in 1999, local "sponsors," including the city, were supposed to kick in a total of $8.3 million, with city taxpayers picking up $1.93 million of that, with the remainder to be raised through commercial sponsorships ($2.9 million), "in-kind services" ($1.4 million), "other agencies" ($700,000), and a variety of other sources.

Those close to the situation believe that the cost to local government, including increased security in the wake of the September terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, will now top $20 million and possibly much more -- especially if the NFL sticks to a demand that cantilevered seating be built to assure those long-ago-promised 70,000 seats at Qualcomm.

The NFL's original plans are spelled out in a letter dated April 19, 1999, to Ky Snyder, executive director of the San Diego International Sports Council, from Jerry Anderson, the NFL's Super Bowl architect.

"As requested, I am writing to review the preliminary schedule for the Super Bowl seating installation. This will set out the general framework for determining a final schedule in the future.

"The upper-deck temporary-seating project requires an extended amount of construction time, since it involves steel fabrication and installation. We think this will be in the range of eight to ten weeks. We would recommend that the platform be installed prior to the Chargers season during the spring and summer in advance of the Game. (This assumes that the Padres are out of the stadium by that time.) The area could be secured and work could continue on the platform during the football season with minor interruption to the existing ticket holders located in that area. The final work to install the stairways and seating risers could be done in the month before the Super Bowl. This limited amount of remaining work could be scheduled to be completed in a worst-case scenario in one week if the Chargers are in the playoffs. There would probably be some acceleration costs associated with this type of schedule if the Chargers host AFC Championship games.

"The other seating installations are, for the most part, self-evident. If the plan to lower the field is viable, this would be done prior to the Chargers' season. This work would most likely be completed in eight to ten weeks.

"The only other major element in the project schedule would be the financing plan. This will need to be directly coordinated with major milestones for the project in general."

Reached by phone last week, Anderson said the NFL is still meeting with the city to determine final arrangements, including who will pay for what, and to resolve the troublesome seating plan. No final decisions have been made on how best to proceed, he said. "It's going to take two to three weeks. We're still doing due diligence. Nothing is resolved yet. I think what you say is that both entities are working on it, but it's premature to say anything about it. There are lots of ideas, and we have to talk to all of the entities involved. We've put together some of the preliminary documents, but that's it."

Asked whether the recommendations in his 1999 letter were still on the table, Anderson would only say, "A lot of things have happened since then."

Another source familiar with the talks confirms that the final outcome is still uncertain but that some options have already been ruled out, including a plan to lower the level of the playing field physically in order to make room for bleachers that would not obstruct sight lines . "That's out," says a source close to the negotiations. "No time. The Padres are still in the stadium, so you can't dig up the field."

During the last Super Bowl, existing seats blocking sight lines were kept unsold and covered during the game, a prospect, the source says, that the city faces again this time.

"That, again, is the NFL's call, and they're going to decide how many they're going to cover," says the source. "I'm sure they're going to cover some up as they did in '98, because of the sight lines. They covered seven rows of seats, as I recall, in '98."

Plan B, the installation of an expensive "cantilever" system of seats on the upper deck, also seems difficult, the source says. "That would be a good way to pick up some 7500 seats, but we just don't have time to do it; it's a six-month project, and we don't have six months. Baseball goes right into football, and football goes on into almost the Super Bowl. Depending on whether the Chargers go to postseason or not, that would really complicate matters. I don't know if they've completely discounted that. My guess is it would be a remote thing.

"If you have to cantilever the stadium and come in, like, four rows cantilevered, that's going to be a tremendous engineering and construction problem, and there's no time. How can you do it? You're playing football games. I don't see how that's going to work."

Yet another serious problem with that option is that it would cost millions of dollars, further embarrassing the city council in the eyes of taxpayers already irate about the Chargers ticket guarantee.

Thus, the multimillion-dollar question would appear to be, will the NFL accept far fewer than the 70,000 seats originally promised by the city, or would the league bolt town for another location, such as Pasadena's Rose Bowl? "I think it's pretty much too late for them to go to Pasadena, but who knows?" says the source.

"They've done it with fewer than 70,000 seats before. The Super Bowl has played to less than 68,000 before. I think they did it in Texas; I think Rice Stadium did. How could you go to the Rose Bowl at this late date? I honestly think this will be Qualcomm's third and final Super Bowl."

Security will also be a costly item, and the city is not yet saying how much more money will be needed as a result of extra measures required in the wake of the terrorist attacks. In any case, local taxpayers are committed to picking up a substantial part of the tab. "Resolution NO. 291571 of the San Diego City Council and Resolution 99-124 of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors confirm that there will be no charges for any public-safety services provided outside of the Stadium itself and for other official NFL events," according to the official NFL bid document from April 1999.

"The security situation is still under resolution," says the NFL's Anderson. "There are applications made to the federal government. I don't know what the status of those are. When I do, that will give us some direction."

Speaking of the vast stadium parking lot, a source with knowledge of the city's plans says, "The Secret Service is going to come in here and fence this son of a bitch off. I don't know if we're ever going to put any cars in it this time. That's the concern I have. I don't know how we're going to get people here."

And that, in turn, influences the location of the NFL Experience, which also appears to be in limbo. Asked about the status of that project and where it will be located, a Super Bowl host committee spokesman said that the location had yet to be decided, but he would not elaborate.

As is the case for all of its Super Bowl-related functions, the NFL makes stringent demands regarding a site for the event. Attached to a 1998 letter from Super Bowl task-force coordinator Ky Snyder is a list of "must haves" from NFL Properties official James Steeg. "The space (including associated parking space) should be provided cost free," Steeg wrote. "If the location is an outdoor facility, it should have approximately seven acres of grass and 13 acres of asphalt, with drainage. Ample power and water should be available for use by NFLP at the facility at no cost. Identify a suitable adjacent location with unobstructed access to the Southwest sky large enough to park required television trailers at no cost. At least 750,000 feet of additional space is required for parking."

In its 1999 bid, the city listed the stadium parking lot, the fairgrounds in Del Mar, and the Naval Training Center as possible locations but ultimately settled on a 15-acre parcel across from the stadium along Camino del Rio North on the south side of the San Diego River. Part of the site is occupied by a skateboard park. The plan was to accelerate construction of a bridge that the city had already planned to build to service a new shopping center near the site, linking it to the stadium parking lot. But costs and environmental problems plagued the $11.2 million project almost from the beginning.

According to Frank Gaines of the city engineering department, the city still lacks a secure source of funds for the last $3.9 million. But even more significant for the NFL Experience is the opposition of Randy Berkman, a longtime Mission Valley environmental watchdog who has raised a series of questions about the motives and wisdom of rushing the bridge to completion. He has rallied the Sierra Club and other environmental allies to oppose the project.

"This bridge is basically a luxury road for a private floodplain development, paid for with mostly our tax dollars," Berkman says. "The developer was originally supposed to pay for the whole cost of the bridge. How it went from that to where we are supposed to pay for all but $2.6 million of an $11 million-plus project should be reviewed in detail by the grand jury -- since it doesn't make sense as 'traffic mitigation' for the stadium remodel because such added traffic would only occur about eight days a year, during Charger sellouts.

"This is one of the most ridiculous and deceptive projects I've seen, which is why I jokingly refer to it as the Enron Bridge. The city is not honest about alternatives for the bridge, the lack of need for it, the lack of significant traffic relief, the visual impact, the recreational loss of the skate park used by hundreds of kids per day."

The NFL Experience, Berkman also notes, would destroy 7.57 acres of endangered coastal sage scrub. The bridge project itself would remove 1.6 acres of wetlands and threaten the habitat of the endangered least Bell's vireo. Libby Lucas, of the state department of Fish and Game, says that construction of the bridge couldn't begin until at least September 15 because of the vireo's nesting season. The city engineering department's Gaines says that the bridge is set for another hearing the before the city council on May 28, but Berkman and his allies will testify against the project and might sue if the city council moves to approve the project. "Let's welcome the NFL Experience as long as it's not in the flood plain or river habitat."

As the delay continued and it became obvious that the bridge could not be completed by January's Super Bowl date, the city scrambled to come up with a face-saving alternative. Its latest proposal is to use a temporary construction "trestle" to carry golf-cart-like vehicles, which would shuttle visitors from the stadium parking lot to the site. But a source close to the situation says that proposal is not practical.

"What it's all about is that the environmentalists got us on the tit-willows in the creek, and we can't build that bridge. We were going to put it on that land on Camino del Rio North, and they can't do it now in time to have it done. So who knows where it's going to be. I don't now. That's up to the NFL right now. They're making that decision as we speak.

"That's still an option to do it there and to shuttle people in, but it's more expensive and not a good tactical situation. I'd say do it offsite somewhere. The racetrack's a possibility. There's a lot of possibilities. Who knows?"

A spokeswoman for the Del Mar Fairgrounds says that the NFL Experience is "definitely not" going to be located at the fairgrounds. Due to heightened security, the stadium parking lot is also out. "Downtown somewhere. Maybe the convention center," says another source.

Insiders say the next decision point comes this week, when representatives of the NFL's major corporate sponsors jet into town to inspect the alternative venues still remaining on an increasingly short list.