Candlestick Park, home of 49ers, scheduled for demolition after 2013 NFL season

Candlestick Park is ready for its final season.

It will take all of 30 seconds to see Candlestick go from a working NFL stadium to a pile of dust. The demolition may take place within weeks after the 49ers play their last game next season.

In 2014, the 49ers will have a new $1 billion stadium in Santa Clara to call home. As for the remains of Candlestick Park?

San Francisco’s Recreation and Park Department, which owns Candlestick, had feared it would be stuck spending millions to mothball the 53-year-old structure until Lennar Corp. was ready to build something on the land.

Lennar, however, figures there’s no point in waiting.

“The best thing for our development and the neighborhood is not to have that hulking building sitting there empty,” said Kofi Bonner, president of Lennar Urban, which plans a retail, residential and office complex for the stadium site and the former Hunters Point Shipyard.

For more on the Niners and Candlestick Park, visit Niners Nation.

Candlestick’s rubble will be used to “grade the site for an 800,000-square-foot shopping district.” There are also plans, according to the article, to have a 3,000- to 4,000-seat arena used for concerts, San Francisco Bulls hockey games and perhaps professional women’s basketball.

Candlestick Park opened in 1960 and kept its name until 1995. It’s been called 3Com Park at Candlestick Point, San Francisco Stadium at Candlestick Point and Monster Park before going back to its original name in 2008.