The San Jose Earthquakes are set to start building their 18,000-seat, $60 million soccer specific stadium on February 26, according to the Silicon Valley Business Journal’s Lauren Hepler. That comes four months after the venue’s world record groundbreaking ceremony.
Shovels set in the dirt prior to the October groundbreaking ceremony
The timing of the start of construction will give the Quakes roughly one year to complete the stadium. Major League Soccer’s regular season runs from the beginning of March until the end of December. The Quakes will want to do at least one preseason game that attracts as large a crowd as possible and another smaller event that it can use as a dry run. Plus there are those always fun “group flushing” tests and other tasks that need to be completed to properly test the facility’s readiness. A web cam will be placed at the site for fans to monitor construction progress.
Some smaller minor league ballparks have been built in a year or less, so it’s possible that the Quakes stadium can be finished in a year. By doing the bulk of the major work during the dry months, the last three winter months should be fine for buttoning up the building. Devcon, the same company working on the 49ers stadium in Santa Clara (along with Turner Construction), has long been tied to this project. If the progress in Santa Clara is any indicator, the Quakes’ new digs should proceed at a rapid pace. By comparison, Houston’s 22,000-seat BBVA Compass Stadium took 15 months to build, forcing the zombie-Quakes/Dynamo to play on the road for two months.
It’s funny that a stadium that will be about one-quarter the size of the 49ers’ stadium will also take 40% of the time to build. The Quakes stadium will be a far less complex building, with a single ground level concourse underneath the seating bowl. A long wait for the inordinately patient Earthquakes fanbase is nearing its end.
newballpark.org 
About time.
Long time coming. And with it should end the “Wolff has never built anything” refrain we’ve been hearing for years. Quakes fans have been waiting a decade or more for this, so it’s nice to see it finally come to fruition.
I can’t wait to take in a game at the new joint.
I found out last night that one of my bar friends is the uncle of Charlie Rugg, the Galaxy’s 1st round pick. I told him that we will have to fight during the Clasico matches.
Looks like the first home Clasico match this year will be at Stanford again. Wonder if they’ll move it to the Niners Stadium next year as a trial run event before the Niners season starts.
Also ML, since it is future stadium construction related. There was an interesting line in the Murk from Dave Kaval about the future of the stadium. “Seating is limited because of the city restrictions. However, Kaval said seating could expand to 25,000 if ticket demand is strong and government officials allow for future growth.”
So they’re already considering future growth, presumably closing the open end of the stadium in the future if demand is there. Shame that’s now how Mt. Davis was built given this week’s aggravating news from the Al Davis Loser Football Club.
I guess it’s now safe to say that the Quakes construction won’t to tied to Cisco Field construction