Looks like the A's are taking another step towards staying in Alameda County, with the end of their stay in Oakland getting pushed out a little further. CoCoTimes' Chris Metinko reports that the A's will have a hard lease at the Coliseum through 2010, with three option years after that.
It makes me wonder whether the news that the A's bought property adjacent to Pacific Commons pushed some of the board members over the top.
Once the deal is signed by the County Board of Supervisors and Oakland's City Council, the A's will have supreme leverage over their venue situation, with a huge buffer covering any expected groundbreaking and opening dates.
The terms have been changed to eliminate the stipulation that the A's give the JPA 50 cents for each admission over 2 million. Conspiracy theorists pointed this as a greedy reason why the A's tarped off the upper deck. If the A's are paying 50 cents per person (as opposed to 50% of each ticket), that's not a lot of money to give up even if the A's hit 2.5 million this season. As I had written previously, ownership wanted to establish a more sophisticated price tiering system, while also being able to fund payroll increases.
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The A's didn't buy the land, Lew Wolff bought the land. The land isn't even big enough for a ballpark, but it's perfect for what it will end up being: a bunch of condos.
Not quite. The recently purchased land has to be rezoned just as the ballpark land would. There's one major obstacle that'll prevent housing from being built on a large portion of that land: high tension power lines. Plus the parcels are right next to the freeway - not exactly the best place to place housing, at least when compared to the rest of the available land.
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