The San Francisco 49ers, much like the Chargers team they beat in Super Bowl XXIX, are seeking a new location to play their home games, as well as creative ways to find a public subsidy.
The Niners are currently pursuing two stadium options — one in San Francisco and one in Santa Clara, a city in the southern Bay Area about 45 minutes away from the current home field.
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has laid out a plan that would provide the team land for a stadium and private development on Hunters Point, a toxic bayside site that the Navy is cleaning up, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. The plan, the paper reports:
… includes at least 8,500 housing units, 2 million square feet of office space, an 8,000- to 12,000-seat arena and 700,000 square feet for retail and entertainment uses, including a large grocery store near Highway 101 at Candlestick and a smaller one at Hunters Point.
The paper reported that Lennar Partners have agreed to put up $100 million in the San Francisco scenario. You might recall that Lennar had spoken to the Chargers about the teams’ Mission Valley proposal, where a similar “swapsidy” was being proposed in exchange for a stadium, before it fizzled last year.
The stadium deal being mulled in Santa Clara may involve a similar subsidy. The team reportedly wants to tap into the city’s utility funds or land assets to the tune of $150 million to $200 million to help prop up the stadium’s funding. But unlike San Francisco, Santa Clara is still studying the feasibility of a stadium proposal.