As advertised, here’s my Sunday column on the 49ers’ new stadium. They like to call it Field of Jeans. I like to call it far away. But, all in all, it’s a pretty neat structure.
The San Francisco 49ers gathered in Santa Clara last week for the team’s annual minicamp, where players and coaches sweated it out for a few days in the sun. Running routes. Lifting weights. Throwing passes. Discussing holdouts.
Pretty typical fare for a team that sits comfortably in the upper echelon of the NFL. Those seats are about to get more comfortable, too.
About 300 yards from the practice field, 700 construction workers gather daily to finish the team’s new stadium, set to open in just over a month. At this point, the construction workers may be sweating a bit more than the players. To date, they’ve installed 68,000 seats, laid 90,000 cubic yards of concrete, set up 2,200 flat-screen TVs and hoisted 75,000 tons of steel.
And they’re still not done.
Levi’s Stadium is a massive structure that has risen from a parking lot into a monument in three short years, towering over the team’s tiny headquarters near Great America Park in Santa Clara. After a tour of the facility this past week, The Chronicle can report that fans will be impressed. So will the players and the media. The stadium uses state-of-the-art technology and wide-open space to deliver a beautiful venue that puts Candlestick Park to shame.
Notwithstanding its location in Santa Clara, Levi’s Stadium will be the envy of the league.
But it’s not quite done yet. And that’s why a guy named Jack Hill is sweating more than anyone these days. Hill is the project executive for Levi’s Stadium, a plain-spoken Texan hired to build the 49ers’ field of jeans.
From what I can tell, they hired the right guy. Hill has overseen the huge project since September 2011, bringing with him a career of expertise building major arenas and stadiums, including the Ballpark in Arlington and American Airlines Center in Dallas.
“We’ve been sweating bullets for two years,” Hill said before taking us around the stadium. “But everyone remembers how you finish a project, not how you begin.”
And that’s what faces Hill now. The vast majority of the $1.3 billion project is complete. But the finishing touches are what everyone will encounter. The seats. The lighting. The sound system. The concessions. And, of course, the “Big Bs” of stadium construction: bathrooms and beer.
“Yup. Bathrooms and beer. That’s huge,” Hill said with a sigh. “At this point, it’s all about testing, testing and more testing. Thousands of activities to finish.”
The stadium will be unveiled to the public at a July 17 ribbon-cutting ceremony. And the first event will be a San Jose Earthquakes game scheduled for Aug. 2. The 49ers will play their first preseason game on the premises Aug. 17, against the Denver Broncos.
So, let’s get down to what’s what in Santa Clara.
The field: More than 100,000 square feet of natural grass. Looks beautiful. And shouldn’t ever have the drainage problems that plagued Candlestick. The biggest issue will be keeping the sod watered, considering the South Bay’s hot weather and the state’s ongoing drought. Recycled rainwater from the roof will help.
The seats: Bright red, plastic and roomy, with cup holders and such. Nothing to write home about, but a quick sit-down made me forget the Stick’s cracked, ugly orange seats.
The amenities: The stadium has tons of high-end lounges, scattered throughout the club and suite levels. But even if you’re in the cheap seats, the corridors are huge and the concessions are plentiful. Should be much easier to get around the main concourse area, with hallways stretching as wide as 65 feet, compared with Candlestick’s paltry hallways, which squeezed to 12-foot gantlets in places. And you’ll be able to order food and check on bathroom lines using a smartphone app, to be released next month.
The bathrooms: We’ll be writing plenty more on this topic as the stadium opens, but I can attest that the men’s bathrooms I saw are top-flight. We’ll see if there are enough women’s restrooms. That’s always the big test.
The food: Looked like a ton of concessions, although we’ll be getting more info on that in coming weeks. We do know that celebrity chef Michael Mina will be running a restaurant on the ground floor, which is never a bad thing.
The scoreboards: Amazing. Levi’s Stadium will feature two huge scoreboards, one on the north end and one on the south. They measure 48 feet high and 200 feet wide. And the picture is high-def.
Noise: Didn’t realize the stadium is in the path of planes taking off from Mineta San Jose International Airport. It might not always be the case, but on certain days it will be. Not sure this open plan stadium will generate the noise we hear in Seattle and elsewhere on game day.
The grassy roof: Much has been made of the enormous luxury suite tower that dominates the west end of the stadium, topped with an environmentally friendly grassy area, which will be available to suite-goers and corporate schmoozers. I had my doubts about the grassy rooftop, but those doubts were not only satisfied, the space blew my mind. Using a mix of 16 species of native grasses and succulents, Hill and his crew have created a fabulous area that will become the place for corporate events in Silicon Valley, game day or not. Officially known as the NRG Solar Terrace, the rooftop garden offers views from downtown San Jose to the Santa Cruz mountains, including close-up visions of Great America’s roller coasters and Moffett Field in the distance.
As we walked through the stadium checking on the gigantic kitchen, looking at the walnut covered locker room or viewing the stylish press box, one could see the pride in Hill’s eyes. The quiet 58-year-old has been working with a cast of thousands over the past three years, using more than 7,000 union trade workers from the Bay Area and beyond to build a monument to the team’s success.
He’s commuted home to Dallas on most weekends, and brought his 10-year-old twins, Jake and Gracie, and his wife, Amy, to the South Bay for the summer the past two years. “They have friends in both places now,” said Hill, a 1979 graduate of Texas A&M.
And so does their dad. You could see the respect he received from the workers he encountered during our day together. He said he’d miss the crew when all was said and done, but that’s the way it goes in this business. “I didn’t build this stadium,” he said. “They did.”
Yes, they did. And hopefully they can put the finishing touches on a facility that will house the Super Bowl the year after next.
“We’re all fans,” said Hill. “We all went out to the Stick the last three years. And it was a great facility … for its time. But this is something ownership wanted. Something roomier. Something better.”
Levi’s Stadium: by the numbers
1.85 million square feet
26 months of construction
90,000 cubic yards of concrete
75,000 tons of steel
800 concession points of sale (food, beverage and merchandise)
13,500 light fixtures
1,186 solar panels
1,620 men’s and women’s toilet fixtures
Over 400 miles of telecom/data cabling
2,200 TVs
Source: 49ers
Al Saracevic is sports editor of The San Francisco Chronicle. E-mail: asaracevic@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @alsaracevic
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