Kassing, Wolff agree stadium deal is dead

By: Kyle Hansen

Posted: 4/23/07

There will be no new stadium for San Jose State University football and Major League Soccer, the university announced on Thursday.

The news comes after months of negotiations between university President Don Kassing and developer Lew Wolff fell through.

Larry Carr, the associate vice president for government and community relations, said that the deal did not work because Kassing and Wolff were unable to agree on the way revenue from the new facility would be shared.

"They agreed this afternoon that they are not going to reach a deal that was going to work," Carr said on Thursday.

Kassing said that while the new stadium did not work out, the university continues to work to improve South Campus.

"We were impressed with the creative idea from Lew Wolff, but the economics did not work out for us," Kassing said. "It made us think about a lot of things - we may look at other ways to renovate the stadium."

Students had mixed reaction to the news. Leone Iosefa Jr., a sophomore majoring in international business and Spanish, said that a new stadium is not really needed.

"I don't think it matters for the university," he said. "Everybody thinks of Spartan Stadium and you go there to see Spartan football. I think it helps us preserve our identity as San Jose State to have our own stadium."

Hector Garcia, a senior business management and hospitality management major, said that a new stadium would have helped the university.

"It is an old stadium and perhaps a new stadium would attract more fans," he said. "San Jose State is a decent team now, a new stadium would help the program and fan support would increase."

Even without the new stadium, the university is still working with the city to improve South Campus and the surrounding area.

The city and university have a current agreement to develop a plan to improve the area, including Municipal Stadium, Kelley Park and Logitech Ice.

"We will go back to those discussions with the city about South Campus," Carr said. "In regards to the stadium, we are staying in Spartan Stadium."

"We will always look for ways to improve where we are, but we still have a facility to play in," he said.

San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed also said Friday that the city hopes to continue to work with the university in the South Campus area.

"We will do a lot of things together in South Campus," he said, "it just appears that a new stadium is not going to be part of it."

Reed also said that the city has money set aside to build community soccer fields in the area.

Tom Hastings, the associate athletic director for media relations, said that there has been talk of making further improvements to the stadium, but at this point nothing is in the planning stages.

"I think that everyone would like to have a new stadium, but at what cost?" he said.

"The refurbishment of Spartan Stadium is probably more realistic than building a new stadium," Hastings said.

David Alioto, the executive vice president of Earthquakes soccer, said that the group is still optimistic about building a new stadium in the area, although he would not say it has to be in San Jose.

"We have other options that we are looking at," Alioto said. "We are very optimistic that we are going to bring soccer back to the South Bay."

Alioto said that both the soccer team and SJSU might be better off without a new, shared stadium.

"Some deals are not good for either side," he said. "I think that might have been the case here."

Wolff, who is also the co-owner of the Oakland Athletics baseball team, has negotiated the rights to start a new Major League Soccer team, to be called the Earthquakes, in the Bay Area to replace the Earthquake team that San Jose lost in 2005.

The owners of the old Earthquake team complained that the existing Spartan Stadium did not meet their needs and subsequently moved the team to Houston.

Wolff hoped to build a new stadium that would be a joint soccer and SJSU football facility adjacent to the existing stadium to take advantage of the large amount of available land already owned by the university.

Wolff's plan called for the use of most of the 63-acre South Campus. Kassing was concerned that the university would be losing its property so that someone else could make money.

"We would provide a parcel of land, they put a commercial activity on that land and then make money," Kassing said in a press conference at the beginning of the month. "So we provide an opportunity for them to make money by having a parcel of land, … and we want a return on that land."

According to unnamed sources quoted by the San Jose Mercury News, Wolff offered the university $1 million per year for use of the property, plus a share of the revenue generated by other events at the facility such as concerts.

The Earthquakes would keep all revenue from soccer matches and the university would keep all revenue from SJSU football games.

The Mercury News reported that Kassing wanted $6 million a year guaranteed from stadium revenue.

Wolff proposed to pay for the new stadium with funds raised from the development of land in the Edenvale area of San Jose, according to a report released by the city last week. The development is contingent on the city council rezoning the land for residential use, which is not likely to happen if Wolff is not going to use the profit to build a new stadium within the city.

Wolff told the Mercury News earlier last week that he hoped to build the stadium in San Jose and with the university, but that his options were open.

"My absolute preference is to do it in San Jose," Wolff said. "And my second preference is that if we do it in San Jose, it would be fun to do it with the university.

"If for some reason we can't do it with them, I'd still like to do it in San Jose. But our option is for the entire Bay Area."

The Mercury News also reported that Wolff has been in preliminary negotiations to build a stadium in Placer County, outside of Sacramento.