Ground broken on San Francisco development at Candlestick Park site after years of delays

Eleven years after its demolition, the site of San Francisco's iconic Candlestick Park stadium hosted a groundbreaking on Wednesday of a long-planned development that will provide thousands of new homes, commercial space, and parkland.   

Mayor Daniel Lurie and House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi were among the dignitaries during a sunsplashed groundbreaking ceremony at the normally wind-blown Candlestick Point on the city's southeastern corner. Former Mayor Willie Brown was also on hand at the groundbreaking and recognized for his original efforts to spearhead the development of the Candlestick Point and adjacent Hunters Point sites. 

The Candlestick waterfront development will eventually include 7,200 homes in the city's Bayview District along with a 2.8-million-square-foot innovation district on 270 acres, encompassing 60 city blocks. Seven hundred homes will be built in the first phase of the development, 300 of which will be affordable, according to the city and the developer, Irving-based FivePoint Holdings. The plan also will include 100 acres of parks and open space, 2.5 miles of publicly accessible waterfront, shops, restaurants, and a hotel.

Brown compared the project with the city's other recent major developments including Mission Bay and Treasure Island, and said he looked forward to the transformation of the working-class Bayview-Hunters Point community which has historically faced economic, environmental and industrial challenges.

"When I think of this area, I think of what the potential could have been, but I'm even more pleased with what the potential will produce and what the space will be," Brown said. "I'm telling you, it will be equally as dramatic for this part of the city to have a new community with such great vibrations, such great participation, and such a collection of private investors who understand what their role should be."

Candlestick Park was opened in 1960 as the new home for the San Francisco Giants after the team relocated from New York. The stadium quickly became known for its windy and chilly conditions, with the geographic makeup of the area making the wind gusts significantly higher than other parts of the city. The stadium was expanded in 1971 to accommodate the San Francisco 49ers after the team left Kezar Stadium. 

The Giants played their last game at Candlestick Park on September 30, 1999, before moving to Pacific Bell Park, now Oracle Park. The last 49ers game in Candlestick was on December 23, 2013, and the final event at the stadium, a Paul McCartney concert, was held on August 14, 2014.

The development plans include public spaces and streets named in honor of former Giants and 49ers legends, among them Willie Mays, Bill Walsh, Joe Montana, and Jerry Rice.  

Wednesday's groundbreaking marked the end of years of delays in developing the site. In 2008, voters passed Proposition G authorizing the conversion of the stadium land and surrounding parking lots into a mixed-use neighborhood. Environmental cleanup issues at the adjacent Hunters Point Shipyard caused delays since it was linked to the Candlestick Park site under an original master redevelopment plan.

In 2024, the city's Board of Supervisors approved a revised agreement that decoupled the Candlestick and shipyard developments, allowing the Candlestick project, which did not have environmental cleanup issues, to move forward. The shift also added about 2 million square feet of office space originally planned for the shipyard project.

"For years, San Franciscans have heard about what would someday rise at Candlestick. They heard about new homes and parks and shops and jobs. But year after year, it remained empty," said Lurie. "Today, I am proud that we are breaking ground at Candlestick and taking the first step toward 7,200 new homes in San Francisco for San Franciscans."

FivePoint says the entire Candlestick development would be a multi-decade project that will also include infrastructure construction and improvements. The first phase of construction, the 700 housing units, is expected to be completed in 2029. A commercial and innovation district is planned by the early to mid-2030s, with the full build-out extending into the 2040s, the developer said.