Candlestick Park's Next Featured Event: The Demolition

The last few Paul McCartney fans are probably still making their way home from last Thursday's farewell concert, and Candlestick Park is officially closed for business. Wednesday, the process begins that will eventually lead to demolition of the 54-year-old stadium.  Developer Lennar Urban, which plans to include the Candlestick site in its San Francisco Shipyard development, will walk potential demolition bidders through the steps necessary to bring down the venue.

Candlestick is still under the control of the city's Recreation and Park Department, which plans to officially hand over the venue to Lennar in the next couple of months.

"We still have maintenance staff there," said Rec and Park General Manager Phil Ginsburg. "Some of the preliminary tasks of beginning to deconstruct the stadium are beginning." One such task will be removing seats from the venue that have been sold to benefit the Rec and Park scholarship fund.

Lennar spokesman David Satterfield said that knocking down Candlestick will be a three-part process. After any hazardous materials are removed from the stadium, Candlestick will be demolished. Lennar plans to select the method of demolition and a contractor in October. The actual demolition is scheduled to take place — either by dynamite or by wrecking ball — early next year. The contractor will be required to grind up the mountains of concrete from the stadium for use in a future development at the site.

That development will be part of Lennar's enormous San Francisco Shipyard project, which includes plans for 10,000 new homes, nearly a third of which will be designated as affordable housing. The development plan also features retail, entertainment, office and lab space, and more than 300 acres of open space.

The open space is of particular interest to Ginsburg, who hopes to continue Rec and Park Department's relationship with the area when Candlestick is long gone. "We are hopeful that this project will result in adding to the city's portfolio of athletic fields, where we have a desperate shortages," he said. "We would very much like to be a partner in the open space planning and management out there."

The longtime home of the 49ers and Giants hosted its last NFL game in December, but a number of celebratory events were held over the summer, including Team USA and San Jose Earthquake soccer matches, and  a charity flag football game with Niner legends. Paul McCartney finally closed Candlestick last week in front of 49,000 fans, nearly half a century after the Beatles performed their last live concert at the stadium.

Now the stadium is officially a memory. Says Ginsburg: "The transition is underway."