It’ll take a lot more than the loss of $30 million to stop a $1.2 billion stadium from being built.
And so the decision of Santa Clara County to not contribute $30 million in tax money to the 49ers stadium effort won’t matter, in the grand scheme of things.
“This is not going to stop the stadium project. It’s going to get built,” 49ers CFO Larry MacNeil said Monday, via Mike Rosenberg of the San Jose Mercury News.
Still, it’s unclear how the absence of the $30 million will be handled. As Rosenberg explains it, the $30 million (plus $10 million already paid) acted as a down payment of sorts, which made it easier to secure the loans that will finance the bulk of the project. The 49ers, the NFL, and lead lender Goldman Sachs declined on Monday to address how the lost county money could impact the rest of the funding.
Rosenberg reports that the process of trying to get the money will commence with an appeal to the state and negotiations with the county. Litigation is possible, and arguably inevitable.
Either way, the $30 million represents a small piece of a puzzle that already is being put together, brick, block, and beam by brick, block, and beam.