Santa Clara Approves 49ers Stadium Budget; Premium Seat Sales Brisk
SANTA CLARA (CBS SF) -- Santa Clara has taken another step towards building a new stadium for the San Francisco 49ers as the team reports brisk sales for premium seats at the new facility.
The City Council approved the lease, budget and overall terms of the project on Tuesday in a 6-1 vote.
The final price tag is almost $1.2 billion—up from the original projection of $937 million. But city officials now expect the cost to taxpayers to be lower.
The 40-year lease deal calls on the 49ers to pay the Santa Clara stadium authority about $30 million per year. That figure, however, would rise if the stadium authority had trouble meeting its loan obligations
KCBS' Matt Bigler Reports:
The City Council was scheduled to meet again on Thursday to consider additional documents for the stadium. Those documents include a non-relocation agreement that would tie the 49ers to Santa Clara.
Meanwhile, even though stadium construction is still in the prep work phase, the team is already tallying millions in sales of premium club seats, which have thousand of dollars in license fees attached.
"We're approaching $300 million in suite sales and we've been on sale with that for the last year," said Al Guido, Vice President of Sales for Legends Hospitality Management, the firm hired by the 49ers to sell premium seats and luxury boxes.
KCBS' Mike Colgan Reports:
Prices for some 9,000 club seats - about 13 percent of the 68,500-seat stadium - range from $325-$375 a game, along with a license fee of $20,000, $30,000 or $80,000 a seat, according to the team. Other seat licenses fees have not been announced.
"We've been on sale with club seats for about two-and-a-half months and we'll just continue that process," said Guido. "Right now, we're just selling club seats in the new stadium. We'll open up our reserve seats roughly around June."
Reserve seats will also require a seat license fee, which has not yet been announced. The 49ers expect to make $500 million dollars in seat license fees, according to the Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal.
Also, the 49ers said Wednesday that season tickets for the 2012 season at Candlestick Park have already sold out. While part of it may be because of the team's success last year, Guido said there is also plenty of interest in the new digs.
"People who own current Candlestick season tickets get first priority in the new stadium," Guido said. "Now that we're sold out, everyone who is interested needs to go to the priority wait list and sign up today."
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