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11 October 2005

Fremont City Council meeting tonight

Fremont's City Council is considering conducting a ballpark preliminary feasibility study tonight. Here are the specifics:
  • 7. REPORT FROM CITY MANAGER

    7.1 PRELIMINARY FEASIBILITY STUDY FOR POSSIBLE PROPOSAL TO OAKLAND A’S

    Consideration of a Preliminary Study and the Possibility of a Proposal to the Oakland Athletics Baseball Team to Locate in Fremont

    Contact Person:

    Name: Fred Diaz Christine S. Daniel

    Title: City Manager Deputy City Manager

    Dept.: City Manager’s Office City Manager’s Office

    Phone: 510-284-4002 510-284-4008

    E-Mail: fdiaz@ci.fremont.ca.us cdaniel@ci.fremont.ca.us

    RECOMMENDATION: Authorize staff to retain a consultant and conduct a preliminary feasibility study or studies to enable the Council to determine whether to make a proposal to the Oakland Athletics baseball team to locate in Fremont, should their ongoing negotiations with the City of Oakland not prove successful.

If you're interested, the meeting will begin at 7 p.m. Council Chambers is at 3300 Capitol Avenue in Fremont, within walking distance of the Fremont BART station and the Fremont Hub shopping center. I'll be there, and I should have a follow-up post later tonight.

4 comments:

Georob said...

Is this the first time that Fremont has done anything official-like? I thought they had looked at this before and decided their position would be "No Comment"

What concerns me about Fremont is how long it would take to get BART to Warm Springs. With the SFO extension not pulling the numbers they had hoped, BART's going to be very cautious about ANY extension no matter how long it's been on the drawing board.

So while you're down there, check out what's within walking distance of the Fremont BART station. If I recall, it's a rather low-density downtown area with a lot of parking lots and big-box retailers. It might just be easier for Lew Wolff to swing a deal for those properties instead clearing out a light industrial area that provides good paying jobs

Marine Layer said...

If gas stays at or rises above the $3 level, those SFO ridership numbers will rise soon enough, though maybe not to the initial projections. The extensions are funded by the local county transit agency, so it's not so much that BART would hesitate to build. The local agency (Samtrans, AC, VTA, etc.) needs to be able to foot most of the bill.

Already we're seeing BART systemwide ridership up 6% over the same time last year, which is a good sign.

The area around Fremont BART is not good for a ballpark. The freeway access is poor and the arterial streets would need major upgrades to handle gameday traffic. It would be much easier to relocate any displaced businesses in the Warm Springs area as there's no shortage of light industrial space there (believe me, I work in the area). Most of the area is not built out or occupied, though eventually NUMMI will have something to say about any ballpark development plans.

Anonymous said...

A Fremont/Warm Springs ballpark for the A's would be interesting. It would still be well within reach of the A's East Bay fan base, as well as those from the South Bay/San Jose. Gotta love this...a ballpark on the fringe of the Giants territory, drawing perhaps more fans from the South Bay, and there isn't anything Peter Magowan could do about it. What would an A's team in Fremont be titled? No disrespect to Fremont, but I would go with EAST BAY or GOLDEN STATE ATHLETICS...just food for thought.

Anonymous said...

A little off the subject, but those who subscribe to ESPN The Magazine will find in the latest edition an excellent article on Zito, Hudson, and Mulder (how they stay in touch). Of interest is the photographs of the "Former three." Hudson and Mulder have as their background Turner Field and Busch Stadium. Zito has...JACOBS FIELD? It looks like the magazine dressed up right field of the Jake to look like a fictional A's ballpark. No Mt. Davis for Zito? Even more of a reason for the A's to leave the coliseum.