San Jose Earthquakes - Stadiums

Stadiums

• Spartan Stadium; San Jose, California (1996–2005)
• Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum; Oakland, California (2008–2009) (big game venue)
• Buck Shaw Stadium; Santa Clara, California (2008–present)
• New Earthquakes Stadium; San Jose, California (planned 2014)

The team currently plays its games at Buck Shaw Stadium in Santa Clara. On January 13, 2007, the San Jose Mercury News reported that the city of San Jose, San Jose State University and the Earthquakes owners were in negotiations to build a soccer stadium just east of the Earthquakes' previous home, Spartan Stadium. The new facility, to have 22,000 permanent seats but be expandable to a capacity of 30,000 for single games, would be privately built by Lewis Wolff and John Fisher, the primary owners of the Earthquakes, with San Jose State providing the needed land. Additionally, the team and the university would build community soccer fields across Senter Road in Kelley Park using San Jose municipal bond money that had been approved years earlier for the purpose but never spent. The plan was for the new version of the San Jose Earthquakes to play in Spartan Stadium during the 2008 MLS season, then move into the new stadium in 2009. Plans for the stadium collapsed on April 19 of that year after the Earthquakes and SJSU could not come to an agreement on revenue sharing.

On May 8, the city of San Jose and Earthquakes Soccer, LLC confirmed that their new primary focus was on a site near San Jose International Airport on the site of the former FMC plant. The new site is owned by the city, which is exploring either leasing it to Earthquakes Soccer, LLC or selling it outright. The 75-acre (300,000 m2) site is adjacent to not only the airport but the planned BART extension to Santa Clara and the existing Santa Clara Caltrain station, and near both Interstate 880 and U.S. Route 101. On June 12, 2007, the San Jose City Council voted unanimously to enter into a Memorandum of Understanding to explore construction of a new stadium to bring MLS back to San Jose and adopted a resolution authorizing the city manager to enter into an Exclusive Right to Negotiate agreement with Wolff and his partners regarding the potential development of the former FMC site. The first payment on the new stadium land of $3 million dollars was made in the last week of June 2008. The new stadium is projected to open in 2013.

The preliminary designs were released to the public on September 19, 2009. The new stadium is slated to be a three-sided European style stadium with 18,000 permanent seats and a grass berm at the open end.

On March 16, 2010, The San Jose city council voted 9-0 to rezone the Airport West property to allow for development of the new Earthquakes stadium.