"Soccer stadium throws curve at S.J. baseball plan" "Tennis player banned for doping" (scroll down to the Miscellany subheading) GO SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES!!! -G
If this is true, than it's more important than ever for the stadium site options not needing a public vote (the Fairgrounds and Santa Clara) to be pursued, especially if the Quakes are to return in 2007. GO SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES!!! -G
The way I see it now, Santa Clara is the only option we can see in which difficult political hurdles do not need to be meet..ie: legal issues throw at Santa Clara County by City of San Jose and public voter approval (right, in this economy?). In true negotiating style, we need to work with all of them simultaneously, however, the only clear area that I see in Santa Clara. And if we have friends in Santa Clara, then don't pass up that opportunity. Because we won't get another one quite like that.
Why is Santa Clara a better option than SJ? Is Santa Clara the BEST option for MLS to return to the Bay Area? Thanks
Because the SC mayor and council are very supportive of the team and SJ (with a couple of exceptions) doesn't care if we have a team or not.
No public vote needed for a stadium deal, a city council that wants a team in the city, a couple of nice sites for a stadium. (The sites in Santa Clara are about a 10 minute drive up the freeway from downtown San Jose.)
Santa Clara would seem to be the easier route, in terms of available land, voter approval, etc. However, downtown San Jose offers the opportunity for THE showcase stadium of the USA. A downtown professional sports complex could be the envy of the country.
Thanks for all the answers. Maybe I am wrong here, but as for building the BEST stadium, I would think that just building A stadium would be good enough nowadays.
I don't think anyone should be painting this so black-and-white, with Santa Clara really willing to back the Quakes and San Jose not willing. It's never that easy. Someone will have to come to SC with a legitimate financing plan that doesn't put SC at huge debt risk. That's not going to be easy if the team owners are going to get the lion's share of stadium revenue. Since the youth soccer park is already built, there will have to be something else in the deal that gives the city some sort of community benefit. Increased tax revenue is nice, but that alone won't necessarily pay the bills. San Jose has time to put together an extremely creative plan that can work for multiple constituencies. And if it's done right, it will be structure very similarly to the Pac Bell Park plan, in which most of the money being raised will be for infrastructure improvements. Personally, I'm glad that voters will have a say in it, because it forces proponents to put together a viable plan instead of sneaking it through a couple of council sessions. When I first started posting here I said that I felt that soccer and baseball can coexist together. I had an inkling that's how a deal might be structured, but I had no idea that they would go directly down that path. Think outside the box, folks.
Check out this link on the SSV website, which lists the possible sites that have been discussed in the past. What's missing is another site that is on the property of Mission College that is fairly close to the Santa Clara site listed on the webpage and also the downtown site in San Jose that has seen the most discussion recently. http://www.soccersiliconvalley.com/sites.html
Corner of Tasman & Centennial, currently an overflow parking lot for the Great America theme park, or the campus of Mission College.
Man, lets forget San Jose already and let it go. San Jose sucks, they're dragging their feet I would rather go the Santa Clara rout, it just seems like a better deal to me. The big factor is they WANT us there and they have shown it.
I think the Mission College site is an undeveloped field between the baseball/softball complex and the Mercado shopping center. I'll check to see what size it is. A couple of issues immediately come to mind. Parking will be an issue especially on Friday/Saturday nights, and NIMBY's in the neighborhood just west of the site in Sunnyvale might have something to say about it. I grew up in that neighborhood, and there are already tons of complaints about Mercado (though it is nice to have a movie theater nearby).
Yeah, drat that box. At last Sat's Brit meeting, we heard the history of the recent interactions with the various local municipalities. Finances aside (ie ignoring the box) it's pretty clear that SJ is not currently viable. Which is not to say it wouldn't be the #1 option next year. Whereas Santa Clara has been proactive in its support. (If they could buy Great America, why not a soccer team?)
Here is my letter and response i got back from Purdy. He's trying to make nice. Jerk. --------------------------------------------------------------- Dear : Thanks for your note. I really like soccer, believe it or not. Maybe not as much as I like other sports, but I really do like it. I like watching the World Cup a whole bunch. I like watching Premier League games from Europe. I loved watching my daughter's high school soccer team play. I liked it when she played Division I college soccer for a season and went to the games. I liked watching soccer at the Olympics. But the MLS? You can have it. Here is a league that couldn't make a team work in South FLorida and now has folded up shop in the Bay Area. These should be two of America's top five soccer markets, by demographics and income levels. But the MLS does not ask itself, "Why can't we make soccer work in these two markets? What are we doing wrong?" Instead, the MLS says: "Something is wrong with these two markets. They don't deserve us." That's what I don't like. That's what I really, really, really don't like. And I know you are smart enough to see the difference. Mark Purdy -----Original Message----- From: Sent: Friday, December 16, 2005 10:07 AM To: mpurdy@mercurynews.com Subject: Response to your pathetic editorial just shut up mark purdy...stop pretending to understand the LARGE amount of Quake fans or to understand anything about soccer. you are obviously threatened by soccer for some ignorant, close-minded reason. go back to writing about boring baseball and who cares college basketball. do yourself a favor and shut up
The problem with that sort of thinking is that it ignores the basic crux of how a stadium deal gets done. Just because Santa Clara has voiced support in the past doesn't mean they won't turn tail once they see the price tag. For Santa Clara to make it happen, they'll have to draw up similar or better terms than the letter of intent signed by San Jose. Are they willing to put up $80 million for something that will get used 40 times a year? That's the dilemma they face.
Not necessarily. If an owner gets a slightly less generous deal from Santa Clara, but gets the security of not having to face the voters, he might well take it.
Yeah, the public vote is a major hurdle. If the deal is structured like Pac Bell somehow as only "infrastructure improvements", is a vote still necessary? Also, it appears that the major interested parties at this time, SVS&E and Lew Wolfe, are heavily invested in SJ and may not be interested in Santa Clara. San Jose also has the "downtown redevelopment" incentive to push big projects through that Santa Clara doesn't have. There's also the possibility that some other investors / investor groups might form that are less tied to San Jose, and this is a plus for the Santa Clara option. SSV mentioned that AEG was pretty particular about who they negotiated with but I doubt MLS itself (to the extent that MLS does not equal AEG) would be as picky as long as there's a stadium deal in the works. I think we need to keep plugging on both fronts (San Jose and Santa Clara).
Say you're right. How much less of a deal is that? $60 million pledged by SC? $50 million? Regardless, it's not chump change. And by doing that, the owner would be paying $20-30 million just to avoid a vote. It's possible, but that "security" is an unknown. The citizens of Santa Clara will get a chance to scrutinize the plan. They may not have a direct say, but they can make the pols squirm if it's not a good deal.
MLS made a mistake in allowing the Quakes to be moved this year instead of giving the situation one more year (as is happening in KC). Purdy is right about that. But Purdy is mistaken when he implies that nothing is "wrong" with this market. What has been wrong with this market, which was being corrected when the Quakes were snatched, is that the local governments have been far too lackadaisical and reactive, instead of diligent and proactive, with respect to creative assistance in support of an SSS. This problem with the market, i.e., local government, was correcting itself but time simply ran out (in terms of the AEG and MLS timeline) for the correction to reach its full course. So yes, you can criticize the "market" to the extent that term includes the attitudes and actions of local governments, but the local governments now have a clear opportunity to continue the progress that has begun and remove this "market" problem from the local MLS landscape.