The Q Beat

Santa Clara Looking to Finalize Deal to Bring 49ers to Town

The Q Beat

(BCN) - Former San Francisco 49ers president Carmen Policy said today he expects the city of Santa Clara to agree to basic terms on a proposed new football stadium but remains hopeful that ultimately, a deal can be reached to allow the team to stay in San Francisco.

The Santa Clara City Council will consider the “term sheet” for the proposal at a 7 p.m. public meeting tonight. The city has been working with the team for 18 months on an agreement for the $900 million project to be built in a lot next to the Great America amusement park.

“We always anticipated that the 49ers would have a term sheet agreed to with the city of Santa Clara,” said Policy, reached by phone this afternoon. “But we did not think that the deal would turn out quite the way it did.”

Any action on the proposed agreement would pave the way for a ballot measure that would go before Santa Clara County voters in March 2010.

An environmental impact report is still pending, and other legal and financial agreements would still have to be hashed out.

“I think they’re going to have a hard time financing this plan,” Policy said of Santa Clara. “I’m not sure that anything’s going to get done down there.”

“I don’t like wishing failure on anyone,” Policy said, but he said he is “hopeful” the team does not move south.

Policy is working as a consultant for the city of San Francisco and developer Lennar Corp. in negotiations aimed at keeping the team in the city.

Lennar and the city are beginning a multi-billion-dollar redevelopment project for the Candlestick Point and Hunters Point areas. The project involves the construction of thousands of affordable housing units, the creation of parklands, and transit improvements. About $100 million has been set aside for the team to use toward construction of a new stadium there, if the team chooses to remain.

“We’re getting to the point that if the 49ers are not a viable element of this project, then we’ve got to plan accordingly,” Policy said.

“We’re going to have to know something … by March of next year,” he said, “or we’re just going to have to go forward without them.”

“I think that they’re probably looking at this from the standpoint of, ‘Where can we get a stadium built the quickest and the easiest?’” he said.

“I think they feel that it’s just too tough to get something done in San Francisco…it will just take too long, and be too difficult.”

Lisa Lang, a spokeswoman for the 49ers, said today that transportation and infrastructure issues with the Hunters Point project remain a significant hurdle to even considering San Francisco as a fallback plan for a 68,000-seat stadium.

“We’re still quite a ways away from a project that would work as a backup plan (there),” Lang said.

Lang said the team is still discussing those issues with the city, Mayor Gavin Newsom and Lennar but that “Our primary focus is Santa Clara and that’s what we’re working on today.”

“In the end,” Policy said, “what everybody’s hoping for is a beautiful, state-of-the-art facility that positions the team to be highly competitive from a performance and a financial standpoint.”

He said San Francisco offers “a landmark project with phenomenal views.”

While Santa Clara would build a great stadium, he said, “They’ll be perched on a parking lot in an amusement park.”

San Francisco “will market better, not only to the local marketplace, but to the national marketplace.”

“I just think that the fan base will be more appreciative and more receptive on a wider scale, staying in San Francisco than in moving to Santa Clara.”

Policy said that when he was in charge of the 49ers, the team had a great relationship with Santa Clara.

“And so those are wonderful people down there, it’s a great community,” he said. “I just think the 49ers are better situated staying in San Francisco.”

Q June 2 2009

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