The Stick hosts its final regular season 49er game on Monday night. For many, there's mixed feelings about the old stadium. After more than half a century, there are roughly three days and counting.
"Yeah, I grew up in this place. I'm going to miss it," one man told ABC7 News.
Asked what he'll do when the stadium is gone, all another fan could muster was, "I don't know."
Well thank goodness; someone has been working on it.
"The pressure is to see that the project that ultimately comes out of all this is really worthy of this great city," Kofi Bonner told ABC7 News.
Bonner is not a household name, but he is president of Lennar Urban, the company that will transform Candlestick Point and the old Hunter's Point shipyard into a new city, within a city, with 12,500 new homes, and parks, and businesses, and even a large bridge between the two areas.
How much will it cost?
"Let me say, it's in the billions," Bonner said.
Near the shipyard, Lennar Urban has already begun construction on the first 80 homes -- condos and townhouses. The views will be a selling point and the surrounds, an act of faith.
"The demographic is somebody that wants to live in San Francisco that wants to enjoy brand new homes that have all the amenities that you could get downtown that you can't afford downtown now," Sheryl McKibben with Lennar Urban.
The given is that Candlestick Park as we know it will cease to exist and structure will disappear. The question is how will they get rid of it -- piece-by-piece or implosion?
In what has become a disposable society, we've certainly seen a few implosions by now. Cinergy Field in Cincinnati and Three Rivers in Pittsburgh had similar structures and styles to Candlestick. In San Francisco, we're still one year away. The means to Candlestick's ultimate end are still undecided.
"I think my preference would be to implode because my gut tells me that that may be the least offensive, ultimately, to the overall neighborhood because it's such a large structure. Deconstruction over time could be quite a nuisance," Bonner said.
Then again, maybe we're getting ahead of ourselves. At least, until Monday.
