Merc sports columnist Mark Purdy weighed in on the San Jose plan. Like his employer, he endorses it, though he uses a different rationale:

From the day I moved to San Jose in 1984, I was mystified about one thing. I could never understand why city officials had never set aside land for future big projects — a stadium, an arena, a convention center, museums, a world-class park, whatever.

What San Jose is doing is an effort to not only control the land for a future proposal, but also to rein in acquisition costs and required time that can easily spin out of control in this era of stadium-building.