The SF Giants' ballpark concept drawing that (thankfully) never got built

The design for the new San Francisco Giants stadium, presented to San Francisco voters on Aug. 5, 1987, was no AT&T Park.

The Seventh and Townsend street ballpark was designed so Giants batters would be facing a maze of offramps, not a lovely aquatic cove. The freeway in the architectural concept drawing looked like the stadium’s entrails were spilling out of left field.

But for San Francisco Giants fans in 1987, who were being convinced that the team was oh-so-close to leaving town, the bulky $80 million ballpark looked like a life preserver.

“Before I leave office I want to have the Mission Bay proposal in place for the new ballpark to replace Candlestick,” San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein told fans at a Chamber of Commerce meeting in 1987. “We have a $1-a-year commitment for the site. We have the financing. And if the wind blows toward the fences at Seventh and Townsend, let it blow only when the Giants are up to bat.”

The proposed Seventh and Townsend park was actually walking distance from AT&T Park, but it couldn’t have looked more different than the charming brick-walled destination the team has enjoyed for the past two decades.

It was to be built on railroad tracks, with the nearest large body of water four long blocks away. The bulky bowl design with spiral exterior staircases looked more like a football stadium. And instead of McCovey Cove, Barry Bonds might have been hitting balls onto a 280 freeway offramp.

But Giants owner Bob Lurie was resolute that if a ballpark couldn’t be finished before the team’s Candlestick Park lease was up, at a location far away from Bayview-Hunters Point, he would take the team elsewhere. He insisted that the Candlestick wind was cutting into attendance.

“It’s time we found out what the voters really think,” Lurie said.

The Seventh and Townsend site had been floated before, as city leaders scrambled to find a stadium solution, trying to avoid asking citizens for public funding. At one point, Feinstein’s staff suggested that the ballpark might double as the city’s official fairgrounds — offering off-track betting to defray costs.

Photos from the Aug. 5, 1987, presentation at City Hall had a funereal look, even as Lurie and Feinstein showed giant photos of the proposed ballpark. Feinstein is smiling in just one of two dozen images. Lurie looks alternately stone-faced and shell-shocked in all of them.

Surrounded by assembled press, Feinstein tried to explain the ballot measure Proposition W, which was filed on the deadline date for submitting issues for the November ballot.

“Although no new taxes of public bond issues would be involved, Feinstein said, she conceded that some of the city’s hotel tax money might be used if there were a surplus in the fund,” Chronicle reporter Marshall Kilduff wrote, trying to untangle the complicated measure in his front-page article. “She declined to say how much.”

Feinstein and Lurie offered different ideas on how to raise money, including luxury boxes and advertising space. According to The Chronicle article, “The stadium might even be named after a corporate sponsor to obtain financing, the mayor said.”

Lurie had insisted Seventh and Townsend was the only place he would build the ballpark. Feinstein did everything she could to push Proposition W. At one point, she posed for Chronicle photos where the stadium would be built, walking across the train tracks in high heels.

But the stadium measure was defeated on Nov. 3, 1987, by 11,000 votes. A furious Lurie vowed to move the team out of San Francisco.

“(San Franciscans) are saying, ‘We don’t want a stadium. We don’t want the Giants,’” Lurie said. “The bottom line is the Giants will not be playing baseball in San Francisco.”

What seemed like the most bitter words a Giants fan could hear were not, in fact, the end of the story.

Lurie eventually put the team up for sale, and it was purchased in 1993 by a local group led by Safeway CEO Peter Magowan. The result was a win-win-win-win that included the signing of Bonds as a free agent, construction of an all-time-classic ballpark in China Basin using no public funds, huge profits for the new Giants owners and three World Series championships for the fans.

As for the concept drawings for that ugly freeway-side stadium? They’re in a file in The Chronicle archives marked “San Francisco Stadiums — Failed.” A reminder that your point of greatest despair as a fan can turn out to be a blessing in disguise.

Peter Hartlaub is The San Francisco Chronicle’s pop culture critic. Email: phartlaub@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @PeterHartlaub

Let's block ads! (Why?)