49ers Unveil Plans For Privately-Financed New Stadium

49ers Unveil Preliminary Design Of New Stadium

The 49ers yesterday unveiled a preliminary outline for a privately-financed 68,000-seat stadium designed by HNTB Architecture that would cost $600-800M and be built on a landfill southeast of Monster Park at Candlestick Point, according to Robert Selna of the S.F. CHRONICLE. The team plans to partner with Lennar Corp. on an adjacent development that would include housing, retail and office space. 49ers VP/Communications Lisa Lang said that the team “no longer needs” the $100M in public financing approved for a stadium/mall development in ’97, but added that the club “believes that it is still entitled to the land because the new project would qualify” under the rezoning measure approved at the same time. But Lang said that the team “would seek Board of Supervisors approval.” Lang “outlined a proposed timeline in which the project would start with community input in September” and the team would play its first game in the stadium in 2012. 49ers officials said that they “hoped to put two-thirds of the seats in the stadium’s lowest section and to include” a plaza with a “large-open area for viewing” downtown S.F. (S.F. CHRONICLE, 7/18). Luxury suites “would be arranged in a stack on one side of the stadium, topped by a press box” (SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS, 7/18). The stadium “could be expanded by up to 6,000 seats for a Super Bowl and by 12,000 seats” if S.F. is awarded the 2016 Olympics (OAKLAND TRIBUNE, 7/18).

NEW YORKS? Lang said that 49ers co-Owners John and Denise York would make “a ‘significant’ contribution –- in the hundreds of millions” –- toward the stadium’s cost (S.F. CHRONICLE, 7/18). The club also plans to seek a $150 loan from the NFL’s G-3 program (SACRAMENTO BEE, 7/18). In San Jose, Tim Kawakami notes John York did not attend yesterday’s presentation, and adds, “York is the snail-paced sun and moon of this project, which is why it has been so long delayed and why there are giant screaming questions that were purposely left unanswered” (SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS, 7/18).