Stadium of the Dogs

San Franciscans will be voting on a ballot measure this fall to redevelop the former Hunters Point Navy Shipyard into a new stadium for the San Francisco Forty-Niners football team, retail, and housing project, 25% of which will be affordable housing.

Attached to this is the redevelopment of the current Candlestick Park football stadium into a new arena to attract large events and concerts. Candlestick Point, where the proposed arena and current Monster Park stadium are located, forms the southeast corner of San Francisco City and County. The largest arena space in San Francisco currently only seats 8,000. The new arena would sit from 15,000 to 20,000.

The problem is that the neighborhoods around the proposed projects is considered one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the city. The only mass transit link has to go through the dangerous neighborhood to get to both Hunters Point and Candlestick Point.

While this may not harm the football stadium, where football games are largely played during the day, the arena's events will mostly be held at night. Will parents feel comfortable sending their teenagers off on the Third Street light rail through those neighborhoods to and from the proposed arena late at night?

The location reminds me of Kansas City's white elephant of an arena, Kemper Arena, placed in the West Bottoms. It is in an area of the city down the hill from downtown Kansas City, home to mostly abandoned warehouses and cattle pens.

The suburbanites never felt safe in the area where mostly homeless people resided at night. Although the neighborhood has changed somewhat in the thirty years since the arena was built, it never could recover from the perception of danger.

Further hampering the success of the site was lack of mass transportation and lack of restaurants and bars around the arena. Kansas City recently built a new arena downtown to correct its original error.

It looks like San Francisco is headed in the same direction as Kansas City. It will have a white elephant of an arena if the ballot measure passes for the following reasons.

1. Public Perception of Danger - the city will not be able to change the perceptions of San Franciscans who have believed the surrounding neighborhoods to be dangerous for their entire lives. I don't think that the Hunters Point home development project stands much of a chance for the same reason.

2. Lack of Mass Transit - there is no BART station near the project for those who live outside San Franciso to use. The closest one is several miles away in another city. They would have to bus people in from that station. The MUNI Metro train that services the area is the Third Street train. It doesn't currently go to the park, passing about a mile west of the current stadium site. Again, it would require special buses. I know I wouldn't feel safe taking the T-Line to the park or back late at night even if it went directly to the new arena.

3. Lack of Service Businesses - the area doesn't have any restaurants or bars to make it an all-evening event location. Even if the businesses succeed in Hunters Point, they are too far away from the proposed arena site, separated by the Bay itself, to be helpful to the success of the arena.

While I applaud the city's desire to redevelop the old stadium, it would be better to focus on the Hunters Point development and raze the old arena. Let the market determine the best use. Or perhaps put a great public park in the location that has draws of its own.

The arena site should be located closer to downtown in the SOMA area or in South Beach/China Basin near the AT&T Ballpark. That site has several mass transit connections and sufficient bars and restaurants to make it a successful site for concerts or sports events. It doesn't have the public perception of dangerousness to fight, either.