Have you ever thought to yourself, "You know, that area around AT&T Park really does blow. If it weren't for the fact that one of the best ballparks in professional baseball resides there, it would truly be a miserable little area"? If so, you'll be happy to know that you're not alone! Well, you wouldn't be alone in overstating things a little bit, but the point is there: the surrounding areas don't provide much entertainment or anything to look at, really.
The San Francisco Giants want to change that, and so does the city. On Wednesday, city officials affiliated themselves with an announcement from the team that focused on a plan for a 27-acre site on and around the parking lot across from AT&T Park. What would be built there? All kinds of things - as noted by the San Francisco Chronicle, make the jump for a bit of a list and some more info on the planned Mission Rock development.
The design for the site includes a waterfront park, 1,000 apartments, 1.7 million square feet of campus-style office space and plenty of restaurants, shops and other retail space, designed to serve not only baseball fans, but also the workers and residents in the new development and the fast-growing neighborhood around the ballpark.
Nothing is imminent - their plans to bring all of this to Mission Bay aren't going to really be set in motion until construction begins in 2015. By then, we could be looking at something radically different altogether. That being said, it's becoming more and more important for teams to get revenue wherever they can, and being able to assist and benefit from the development of surrounding areas is becoming more of a sticking point.
That's one of the reasons that the Minnesota Vikings preferred a specific site to their current site of the Metrodome for a new football stadium (and, now, one of the reasons why said stadium doesn't look like it's going to be built) - the ability to buy up land and bring other developments to the area.