[BTinSF]

Grandkids: Get ready for 49ers' stadium
Scott Ostler
Wednesday, June 20, 2007

It will be nothing more, really, than a bunch of plastic seats bolted to an oval hunk of concrete poured around a rectangle of grass. But by the time the 49ers' new stadium is built, the project will make the planning and building of the Golden Gate Bridge look like an Amish barn-raising.

The bridge took 16 years from proposal to opening. The stadium project is going on a decade and the 49ers are at Step 1: Gleam in eye.

The slow and painfully awkward dance continued this week when three NFL representatives came to the Bay Area to tour the two sites voted Most Likely to Land the 49ers.

On Monday, they visited Hunters Point in San Francisco and Tuesday, they toured the area next to the Great America theme park in Santa Clara. The NFL people seemed pleased with both visits, and why not? Who wouldn't be dazzled by a VIP tour of a toxic-waste dump and an empty parking lot?

The NFL drop-in inspection isn't likely to affect much. The league has site input only in terms of influence it could exert on the 49ers when they come asking for a stadium loan.

The ball remains in the 49ers' court and they haven't figured out yet whether it's a tennis ball or a golf ball, or what they should use to whack it.

Fans to 49ers: Shut up and build. Somewhere.

Fans merely want a place to sit. Once you're seated on Grand-Opening Sunday, whether it's in Santa Clara, San Francisco or Stinson Beach, you'll be in the cozy confines of Corporate Name Stadium sipping a $17 beer and cheering touchdown passes thrown by Steve Young's grandson.

The NFL inspection team didn't indicate which site it favors, and we might never know, because so much of this stadium business is conducted in secret, driven by unknown agenda $.

The NFL trio reportedly was impressed with the Hunters Point site, not only by the amount of work the city has done, on paper and on the land, but with the scenic views. The three were impressed with the Santa Clara site's access to public transportation.

For what it might be worth, John York and his son Jed of the team's ruling family helped conduct the tour in Santa Clara but didn't make the tour at Hunters Point.

Santa Clara is still the Yorks' No. 1 choice, though much has changed since November when the 49ers announced they were abandoning most hope of a San Francisco stadium and that Santa Clara was their future home.

Stuff keeps happening. The company that owns Great America, Cedar Fair, recently expressed its opposition to a stadium in its parking lot. The 49ers say they easily and gladly would deal with Cedar's concerns, but that Cedar hasn't replied to 49ers e-mails for three months.

You might think if a company was threatening to block your new stadium and wasn't returning your e-mails, you would try a more advanced form of communication, like, I don't know, the telephone.

Meanwhile, communications remain open between the 49ers and San Francisco.

The city has two master plans for the 775 acres at Hunters Point. Plan A includes a football stadium with extensive grassy parking areas, and about $100 million worth of cash and goodies to help the 49ers build their home. Plan B is sans football.

The 49ers are asking Santa Clara for about $160 million, in addition to the land for the stadium, and that's no sure thing, especially now that Cedar is putting up a roadblock.

San Francisco officials say the massive development project at Hunters Point isn't a hope or a dream, it's a solid plan that's already in motion, and the 49ers could start building there in 2009.

Or they could drag their feet and, a couple years from now, wave as that train leaves the station.

The stadium gets fuzzier and fuzzier, and officials in Santa Clara and San Francisco probably are starting to wonder if the 49ers ever had a clue or plan, other than to figure out where they could shake the most fruit from the tree.

The 49ers say their main concern is for the game-day experience for their fans. They bailed on a Candlestick Park site partly because of concern over tailgating ambience. Now San Francisco is promising vast grassy pastures for parking/tailgating, overlooking the bay, in contrast to Santa Clara's asphalt prairie in the shadows of roller coasters.

The slow, awkward dance continues.

Fortunately, it's only a football stadium. If the 49ers had been in charge of building the Golden Gate Bridge, they'd still be listening to overtures from Livermore.

E-mail Scott Ostler at sostler@sfchronicle.com.

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