Avaya Stadium

Avaya Stadium

Avaya Stadium, San Jose, CA. Taken on January 7, 2015.
Address	1123 Coleman Avenue
Location	San Jose, California
Coordinates	37°21′5″N 121°55′30″W / 37.35139°N 121.92500°W / 37.35139; -121.92500Coordinates: 37°21′5″N 121°55′30″W / 37.35139°N 121.92500°W / 37.35139; -121.92500
Owner	San Jose Earthquakes
Operator	San Jose Earthquakes
Capacity	18,000
Surface	Kentucky bluegrass
Construction
Broke ground	October 21, 2012
Opened	March 22, 2015
Construction cost	$100 million
Architect	HOK (formerly 360 Architecture)
Project manager	David Albert
Structural engineer	Magnusson Klemencic Associates
Services engineer	WSP Group
General contractor	Devcon Construction
Tenants
San Jose Earthquakes (MLS) (2015–present)

Avaya Stadium is a soccer stadium in San Jose, California, and is the home of Major League Soccer's San Jose Earthquakes. The stadium is located on the Airport West site that is located to the west of San Jose International Airport.

Avaya Stadium officially opened for business on February 27, 2015 and has a capacity of approximately 18,000. It is sponsored by Avaya, headquartered in nearby Santa Clara. The stadium features a canopy roof and the steepest-raked seating in Major League Soccer to provide a better view. Additionally, the area behind the northeast goal houses the largest outdoor bar in North America, a two-acre fan zone and a double-sided video scoreboard. The suites and club seats are located at field level. The stadium is part of a mixed use residential, retail, R&D and hotel development.

The stadium was constructed privately with no public money provided by the city of San Jose. Additionally, Lewis Wolff, owner of the San Jose Earthquakes, offered to pay for the maintenance of the stadium for a 55-year time span. The team organization initially delayed the completion date to the middle of the 2014 MLS season, but later delayed it again to the 2015 season. The seat pattern includes three different shades of blue as well as a smattering of red seats to pay homage to the club’s NASL history. Additionally, the pattern contains the message "Go EQ" written in binary.

The proposal for the new stadium for the Earthquakes was brought before the San Jose City Council in June 2007. The proposal called for the city of San Jose to rezone a parcel of industrial land in the city’s Edenvale district to residential uses. The parcel is owned by iStar Financial, but members of the Earthquakes ownership group own an option to purchase the land. Rezoning the parcel would increase the value of the property by approximately $80 million. The site’s industrial capacity would be transferred to surrounding properties allowing those sites to increase the density of the developments on their land, eliminating early generation single level developments. This would also preserve the industrial capacity for the city in the Edenvale area. The option on the land would then be sold and the proceeds would be used to construct the soccer-specific stadium on the Airport West site (formerly the site of an FMC Corp. facility) at no cost to the city. Additionally, Wolff and his partners will be funding and building the mixed use development adjacent to the stadium out of pocket.