Client:

CP Development Co., LP, a partnership of Lennar, Wilson Meany and others.

Project:

The Candlestick Point/Hunters Point Shipyard project will include 12,000 new homes, 3 million square feet of green technology office development and 1 million square feet of retail on 700 acres of the San Francisco Bayfront, with development scheduled to occur for the next 20 years and beyond.

Challenge:

The challenges facing our client included the following:

• Securing the range of land use entitlements necessary for the redevelopment of 700 acres, including an obsolete NFL stadium site (Candlestick Park) and a contaminated Navy shipyard.
• Negotiating agreements governing the transfers of land and the review and approval of future implementing permits for the project’s anticipated 20-year build-out.
• Taking advantage of the San Francisco 49ers’ decision to move out of San Francisco to maximize the developable areas along the protected San Francisco Bayfront, while also providing an optimally designed and improved series of Bayfront parks and open spaces to complement new development.

Solution:

Perkins Coie attorneys have served as primary land use counsel on the project since 2009, including during the original approval of master entitlements for the project in late 2010 by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and the former San Francisco Redevelopment Agency.

We successfully negotiated with multiple agencies to secure amendments to the City of San Francisco’s General Plan and Planning Code and the applicable redevelopment plans.

We negotiated an Interagency Cooperation Agreement between the city, the redevelopment agency and our client, CP Development Co., that provides a detailed process for the streamlined review and approval of the hundreds of permits and authorizations that will be required over the more than 20 years necessary to complete the project.

Most recently, when the 49ers elected to move to the City of Santa Clara in 2014, we negotiated amendments to the land transfer agreements and entitlements to allow for the transfer and demolition of Candlestick Park and the successful transfer of land between the City of San Francisco and the California State Lands Commission to allow reconfiguration of the public trust along San Francisco Bay. The stadium property was transferred in December 2014 and demolished in early 2015. The public trust reconfiguration has optimized the development pattern for the project and ensured a continuous, improved and publicly accessible series of shoreline parks and open space within the project.

Perkins Coie is now processing subdivision maps and land use approvals for development of the most significant mixed-use component of the project on the site of the former stadium—a 650,000-square-foot regional shopping center, 5,000-seat arena, 220-room hotel and 22-story residential tower.