Milestones
By Miles H. Barber

In a brilliant and not so surprising move, the San Francisco 49ers and Cedar Fair announced the culmination of a long discussed plan. The sale of Great America Park for the umpteenth time provides the 49ers a pathway to parking along with an assortment of ancillary benefits to Santa Clara and the new stadium.

This event has some significant history going back a few years when the Valley was booming and the stadium was only a dream.

When Cedar Fair purchased five amusement properties from Paramount in a $1.2 billion dollar package, Great America was a stepchild in the package. It didn’t fit with Cedar Fair’s business plan. The property was leased from the City of Santa Clara and came with a hefty annual lease payment of $5 million.

Ideally, it seemed coexistence between the stadium and Great America was a workable idea. However, the gurus at Cedar Fair saw the stadium as a possible meal ticket to recover some of their investment. When the stadium site was proposed it was originally designed to go right on the Great America parking lot. Cedar Fair would have no part of that and sued the City and the 49ers.

To make this work, the 49ers moved the stadium design and footprint onto the overflow parking lot. During these events the 49ers made an offer to buy the park only to be spurned by Cedar Fair. Of course, no one saw the cataclysmic collapse of the economy and some months later, Cedar Fair came back to the 49ers and agreed to take their offer. Cedar Fair was told that offer was no longer on the table.

Cedar Fair was now faced with an investment that had little chance of being sold. It was a soft market, a park that was leased, a big payment and a facility in dire need of maintenance and new attractions. In short, it was a money pit.

If you have been paying attention, the law suit by Cedar Fair against the 49ers and the City quietly died months ago. Serious negotiations began between the players to create a plan and sell the park to the 49ers or one of their partners like JMA, LLC, (Which has similar initials to Joe Montana Associates).

Obstacles are often opportunities as demonstrated in the continuing saga of the 49ers desire to build the right stadium, in the right place, with the right partners.

The new partnership between JMA, the 49ers and the City resolves not only the parking problem it merges park use with football. It also clears the way to place the stadium smack dab in the main parking lot where John York first envisioned it.

The footprint for the current plan will only need to move a few hundred feet and places the stadium directly across Tasman from the convention center which makes the stadium more accessible from every side. This leaves access to the 49ers training facility intact along with Centennial Drive and access to the Soccer Park.

While there are a few details that will be addressed like use of the Soccer Park and Golf Course on game days, the major hurdles will be easier to jump in this cooperative arrangement.

Long term, friendly ownership of the Park opens even more opportunities for expanding our Entertainment District into a thriving center of business and commerce.

These are some of the tangible benefits we voted for.

Miles Barber can be reached at Scweekly2011@yahoo.com