Phillip Matier,Andrew Ross, Chronicle Columnists

San Francisco Chronicle

Monday, July 6, 2009

(07-05) 18:02 PDT -- Score one for 49ers great Joe Montana.

The star quarterback, along with his Connecticut development partner and a Bay Area housing group, has tentatively been awarded $47 million in state bonds to kick-start a $300 million, mixed-used development that would be built on 12 acres next to the South Hayward BART Station.

A state Department of Housing and Community Development loan committee signed off last week on two grants for Montana and his business partner, Kurt Wittek. The agency's director is poised to give the final OK.

"I don't see any reason at this time for it not to be approved," said Chris Westlake, the agency's deputy director.

As we recently reported, Wittek was convicted of bank fraud by a federal jury in 1992 after he helped a business associate secure an illegal loan to buy a North Carolina savings and loan. Wittek later got part of the case tossed on appeal, and his five-year prison sentence was reduced to probation.

This year, his 141-home development in Lebanon, N.H., hit the skids with just one house sold, and a bank in Fairfield, Conn., foreclosed on the land where Wittek was developing a $500 million commercial complex and train station.

Westlake said the key criteria for determining who got the bonds for the South Hayward project was developer experience.

And no, Westlake says, "there were no extra points or consideration (in awarding the deal) because it was Joe Montana."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/06/BARQ18IGUD.DTL