The San Francisco 49ers took a sizable step towards securing their future home on Friday as they and the city of Santa Clara came to an agreement with three separate banks on $850 billion worth of loans. The three banks are Goldman Sachs, US Bank and Bank of America. The loans will pay the lion's share of the $1.02 billion required at this juncture to pay for the new stadium. Any potential cost overruns would be paid for by the 49ers.
In securing this huge set of loans, the 49ers and the city of Santa Clara will have the cash flow needed to begin the construction sooner rather than later. A conservative estimate on the start of construction is early 2013, with the stadium opening in 2015. The speedy process of acquiring these loans combined with the sooner than anticipated commencement of groundwork has both the team and the city thinking they could get construction started in mid-2012 and get the stadium opened in time for the 2014 NFL season.
The new line of loans will be paid off with a variety of existing and previously planned revenue streams. Ticket sales (and accompanying personal seat licenses) and stadium naming rights will be used to pay off a sizable chunk of the loans, with the team also $30 million per year in rent for the stadium. The NFL is expected to contribute up to $150 million, the Santa Clara Redevelopment Agency will contribute $40 million and a local hotel tax is expected to generate $35 million.
The 49ers have already generated upwards of $150 million in revenue from luxury suite sales and will be putting the personal seat licenses ("seat-builder licenses") on the market in the near future. Additionally, they have already contracted out a company to help secure a naming rights deal.
Aside from getting the SBLs and naming rights sold, the next major step at this point is getting shovels in the ground. There will a form of shovels in the ground in January with the make-ready work, but we're talking official stadium-building shovels in the ground. The timeline remains between summer 2012 and January 2013.