Santa Clara Breaks Ground On Parking Lot Near Proposed 49ers Stadium Site

In news that is a mix of coincidence and mildly relevant, the city of Santa Clara broke ground on a parking garage next to the Santa Clara Convention Center. The $25 million structure will be six stories tall and hold 1,820 vehicles. It is going up next to the convention center and the reason it is even remotely relevant to the 49ers is the fact that the stadium will be right nearby. The ground-breaking took place across the street from the proposed stadium location on Tasman Drive.

The parking garage project has been in the works since before the 49ers stadium proposal, so there is only so much value to this information. For now the structure will benefit the Convention Center and local businesses. Hopefully in a few years 49ers fans will find themselves parking in the garage before walking across the street to the new stadium.

While this is a good step forward, I will for once agree with Lowell Cohn that it is mostly a non-story. Stock up on water and climb into your basement because this agreement with Cohn could be a sign of the coming apocalypse! It's a non-story in the sense that it doesn't put the 49ers closer to building a new stadium. There are 40,000 parking places already out there and 2,000 more doesn't mean a whole lot in the grand scheme of things. The parking garage is going up whether the 49ers get a stadium built or not.

At the same time, if the stadium financing gets figured out, the parking garage will hopefully help clean up any potential traffic messes. The site will have a ton of parking, but it is also conveniently located near a variety of public transportation options including AMTRAK and the VTA Light Rail. VTA Light Rail is just off a CalTrain stop so people could easily make their way down via public transportation if they wanted.

via Taylor Price, 49ers.com