The patron saint of Candlestick Park tailgaters is about to take a long holiday to Oakland.

For four decades the 27-foot-tall, cast-concrete and steel-reinforced statue of St. Francis by artist Ruth Wakefield Cravath kept watch over football and baseball fans just outside the gates of the Stick. Now it’s being evicted to make way for a shopping center and hotel on the site of the demolished stadium.

Officials have been looking for a new home for St. Francis, but none of the park sites in San Francisco that popped up as possibilities turned out to be a good fit.

“It’s a big piece, so it’s not like we can just plop it down across the street. It needs to have the right kind of space,” said Arts Commission senior staffer Allison Cummings.

Now the plan is to find St. Francis a new home somewhere at the Hunters Point Shipyard residential and commercial project, but that won’t be finished until 2018, said Dave Satterfield, a spokesman for developer Lennar Urban.

So, with the Arts Commission’s blessing, the statue will be moved to a warehouse in Oakland, probably within the next few days.

Arts Commission spokeswoman Kate Patterson-Murphy said the plan is to work with “a professional art handler” to get the job done.

The bill for moving and refurbishing the statue is expected to come to $150,000 to $200,000. Lennar has offered to pick up the cost. But in return, the company wants credit for the move to go toward the arts fee requirement imposed on new developments.

In the meantime, keep an eye out for St. Francis, weighing in at several tons, to be hoisted with a crane onto the back of a flatbed truck soon for what should be quite a ride over the Bay Bridge.

Back to Gallery Candlestick Park’s saint statue going on hiatus in Oakland 2 1 of 2 Photo: Eric Risberg, Associated Press 2 of 2 Photo: Courtesy SF Arts Commission



Well connected: By transportation planning standards, the mega-million-dollar Oakland Airport Connector is a hit — but then, transportation planners have unique ways of measuring success.

In the year since it opened, just over 1 million passengers have paid the $6 fee for the ride from the Coliseum BART Station to Oakland International Airport. That’s enough to cover the system’s day-to-day operating costs. If the ridership holds, it won’t need a subsidy to keep running.

“That’s rare,” said Randy Rentschler, spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.

Luckily for BART, it doesn’t have to repay the $384 million from federal and state sources and local transportation funds that helped finance the 3.2-mile line.

But BART did have to issue $111 million in sales tax revenue bonds to finish the project. And that will have San Francisco, Alameda County and Contra Costa taxpayers helping out for the next 15 years.

Aired out: Burlingame might not seem like the most sought-after destination for tourists, but one couple in town is renting out the tree house they built for their kids for $275 a night.

“We had no idea that it would bring such joy to so many interesting people from around the globe, but we are delighted by this,” owners Linda and Doug Studebaker wrote on the home-rental site Airbnb.

The one-room house, nestled in a 150-year-old coast live oak, comes with standard amenities, including cable TV, wireless Internet, heating and all the bathroom essentials.

The Studebakers did not return our calls seeking comment, but from the looks of things, the tree getaway is a hit — it’s got more than 700 reviews, most of them positive.

It’s also a hit with the Studebakers, who stand to make up to $100,000 a year in rentals. That may be one reason the City Council asked its staff to investigate imposing transient occupancy taxes on the more than 300 Burlingame rentals listed with Airbnb.

Any decision about collecting taxes almost certainly will come too late for the city to cash in on tourist bookings for Super Bowl 50, being played Feb. 7 down the road in Santa Clara.

San Francisco Chronicle columnists Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross appear Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays. Matier can be seen on the KPIX TV morning and evening news. He can also be heard on KCBS radio Monday through Friday at 7:50 a.m. and 5:50 p.m. Got a tip? Call (415) 777-8815, or e-mail matierandross@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @matierandross