SANTA CLARA — The San Francisco 49ers are offering more than $15 million to park cars on a youth soccer park next to Levi’s Stadium, but quite a few people in this Silicon Valley town are ready to flag the team for encroachment.
Opponents say losing the fields could cripple the popular Santa Clara Youth Soccer League, and that the payment isn’t enough to buy land and construct new fields.
“How many more concessions does the city have to make to the 49ers?” asked Tino Silva, the new president of the youth league. “This is the 49ers — who are supposed to be good neighbors, keep their word and do what’s right. This is everything but that.”
The NFL team is proposing a long-term deal to gain control of three publicly owned soccer fields next to Levi’s Stadium. The team also wants the right to develop the 10-acre site for other uses, though it hasn’t spelled them out.
The Santa Clara City Council is slated to discuss the proposal Tuesday.
Under the proposal, the 49ers would pay Santa Clara at least $15 million in rent, plus a sizable cut of parking fees, for the city to build a new youth sports complex somewhere else or spend as it chooses. If the Niners were to develop some or all of the property, the team would increase its payments to the city, according to the proposal.
Mayor Jamie Matthews, who led the campaign to lure the team away from San Francisco, described the offer as a starting point for negotiating a deal that would benefit youth sports, city residents and the team.
“I believe it’s important that we don’t dismiss the opportunity to have conversations, even when it’s a difficult subject,” Matthews said Monday in an email.
After holding a one-hour public discussion Tuesday, Matthews and the City Council will spend another hour in a closed session talking about the terms of the offer. A vote on the deal may or may not come at the next meeting in two weeks.
Although real estate negotiations routinely take place in private, Tuesday’s closed session has rekindled allegations that the mayor and his allies will do anything to please the 49ers at the expense of city taxpayers — and now kids.
But team spokesman Bob Lange said the deal offers a win-win.
“This proposal is good for the entire Santa Clara youth sports community, not just youth soccer players, because it increases the number of high-quality playing fields for all youth sports,” he wrote in an email.
The youth soccer park has become the central battleground in a stadium fight that just won’t end. The 49ers played their first game at Levi’s last August after several years of rancorous debate and finger-pointing over public subsidies, economic development and the team’s political influence at City Hall.
According to city officials, the 49ers are asking for a 39-year deal. In early 2017, the team would start parking cars on the fields not just for NFL games but also for special events such as Wrestlemania. For this access, the team would pay $15 million in “pre-paid” rent to the city. They would also give $3 million to the Santa Clara Unified School District to upgrade three of its soccer fields so they could be used by the local youth league.
Silva said the roughly 2,000 kids in his league practice or compete on the three fields almost every weekday and most weekends during soccer season. He fears losing access to the fields would force the league to downsize dramatically.
“That’s 80 percent of our season,” he said. “Where are we supposed to go?”
In addition to the upfront payments, the team is offering to pay the city 70 percent of profits from parking operations and an extra $5 per space for NFL events.
But at least one prominent civic leader, former Mayor Pat Mahan, has come out against the offer, calling it a give-away with little or no real estate homework done by city officials.
“Now is not the time for sweetheart deals,” she said.
She said the team is offering far too little to lease and develop such prime land in the booming town. She and Silva doubt city officials could deliver a new sports complex for kids by 2017, assuming city officials could even find the land for one.
Matthews said he would not move forward with a deal until the city finds a location and stable funding for a new sports park that would be just as good, or better, 0than the youth soccer site.
“I believe that we could easily have it completed by 2017 if everyone works together,” he said.
Contact Joe Rodriguez at 408-920-5767. Follow him at Twitter.com/joerodmercury.
