By Khalida Sarwari
San Francisco 49ers officials and architects for the team presented a glimpse of the proposed new stadium in Santa Clara for the first time Tuesday night.
In an hourlong presentation to the Santa Clara City Council, 49ers officials and architects with HNTB Architecture used slides and animated videos to bring to life the layout of the proposed $937 million, 68,500-seat stadium, which would be built next to the Great America amusement park.
The project still has to be approved by Santa Clara voters early next year.
Aiming for the highest form of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, certification, the team expressed the intent to create an environmentally sustainable stadium, complete with solar voltaic panels and a green roof featuring local drought-tolerant vegetation.
The stadium would be equipped with a lighting system designed to conserve energy.
“This does look and feel different from a lot of older stadiums that are out there now and hopefully if the committee does approve it, it will be able to sustain itself for many decades,” Assistant City Manager Ron Garratt said.
The proposal also calls for placing the suites and club seats all on one side of the structure instead of wrapped around the stadium as in most ballparks, Garratt said.
There would be open-plaza entryways on the northwest and southwest edges of the stadium to serve as meeting and gathering areas for fans.
The bottom level would include a locker room, team store, and about 10,000 square feet of space available for the city to lease to businesses along Tasman Drive, Garratt said.
The proposed stadium would also include space for a second locker room in the event that a second team moves in.
Team architects envision a facility that could easily be modified as technology evolves, Garratt said.
At Tuesday night’s meeting, the council also decided to extend the negotiation agreement to June 2010 and approved up to $600,000 in legal fees, and up to $250,000 for economic consulting fees.
Council members will next meet on Aug. 18 to select a charter review committee.