MLB Giants officials yesterday said that plans “to convert AT&T Park's barren, wind-swept parking lot into the ‘heartbeat of Mission Bay,’ with homes, offices, shops and restaurants, is the much-needed link that will connect the burgeoning neighborhood to the rest of the city,” according to a front-page piece by John Wildermuth of the S.F CHRONICLE. The $1.6B Mission Rock project "will be unveiled at a news conference" today. The plan “calls for a bayside park, up to 1,000 rental units, 1.7 million square feet of office space and a variety of locally oriented businesses, a multistory parking lot, eating places and other spots designed to serve both fans headed to a ballgame and the growing number of Mission Bay residents and workers.” An 8-acre park on the development will feature a statue of Baseball HOFer Willie McCovey and the lawn behind it “will hold as many as 5,000 people for outdoor concerts, movie nights and other events.” The tentative timeline calls for the Giants and Cordish Cos. to "work out an agreement by the end of the year" with the Port of S.F., which owns both the parking lot and the adjoining Pier 48. After two years of environmental review, construction “is expected to begin in 2015.” The Giants' plan “has the enthusiastic support of the city, which stands to see more than 9,000 jobs during the seven years of construction and up to 7,200 permanent on-site jobs when the development is complete.” Absent from the Mission Rock plan “is the once-rumored 20,000-seat arena that would lure” the Warriors from their current home in Oakland. Giants CEO Larry Baer said that the door is “still open for an arena if the Warriors' new ownership is interested ... but the Giants' plan doesn't depend on it” (S.F. CHRONICLE, 4/4).
