The red parcel is the one remaining to be purchased that would be integral to building a ballpark. It is the site of Aeris Gas, which provides welding supplies and specialty gases. The location was formerly named ARC Gas Products, and over the years has merged with other Northern California locations to form Aeris. Last fall, national supplier Matheson Tri-Gas acquired Aeris. When the Diridon South site became a discussion topic in 2005, this business was considered one of the more difficult to relocate due to its specialized equipment and facilities. A move could be quite expensive. Will the city be forced to use eminent domain to acquire the land?
The blue parcels are only to be used to accommodate the widening of Autumn Street into Autumn Parkway. One of those blue parcels, the CarQuest Auto Parts store, is already vacant. Combined, the land is adjacent to Los Gatos Creek. In conjunction with the Autumn Parkway project, the creation of a greenbelt between the creek and the street would appear to be in order.
San Jose apparently has $22 million set aside for acquiring the remaining land. That would appear to be sufficient from a market value standpoint since the total amount of land is around 3 acres, and values at their 2006 peak were $7-8 million per acre - and have definitely dropped in the past 6 months.
There remains the issue of relocating the PG&E substation. The 2006 estimate for moving it south one block was $30 million.
11 comments:
If the Ballpark was put there, how would it work? How would it be orientated? Any land left over? What would it be used for? Parking? Shops and Restaurants?
There will be plenty of opportunity to show concepts. For now, just go with the notion set forth in the EIR: ballpark and retail/commercial, parking off site.
Thanks for the updated map R.M.. I'm sure the gas shop will be bought and relocated with no problems. I was surprised to see how much of Diridon South was in the city's hands. As for the PG&E substation, I do have an Adobe Acrobat document from about 3-4 years ago ("Downtown Baseball") that shows the following:
1) a 45k seat stadium with substation relocated.
2) a 40k seat stadium with substation still intact (whole ballpark appears "pushed" northeast toward corner of Autumn and San Fernando).
Do you remember this document? I want to say it was from LSA. Anyhow, with a possible ballpark probably coming in at 32K seats, can the city/A's build without moving the substation? This would probably be a "worse case" scenario. I'd personally rather see the station moved, but at this point I'll take anything.
Tony D-
I wonder if the substation would need to be moved anyway due to HSR and BART and the electtrification of CalTrain---this might be packaged into a different project--don't have any inside information that it is but just a thought---
With all that is proposed to be going on in this area--with or without a ballpark--the substation location is not ideal--
This graphic is completely useless. I just spent 20 minutes poring over a Google Earth image and can't for the life of me figure out where anything on this image actually is or even what direction it's oriented. Really frustrating.
The previous post has an macro view aerial photo with a full site overlay. Does that help?
The substation will have to be moved. It's more expensive but will provide the best situation for all concerned.
I've figured out a way to have a ballpark, some retail, and 1200 parking spaces all on that site. And it can be done using normal, symmetrical field dimensions. I'll post it in a couple of weeks.
If your familiar with the area the graphic is perfect---ML--thanks for pulling all this together--
i dont know what Anon 5:42 is talking about. the graphic is great. thanx ML.
Hi M.L,
Have a little question.
The SJ site looks much more reasonable and a better choice for the ballpark/ballpark village than Fremont. The traffic solutions and the neighborhood make sense to have a ballpark there.
Why Wolff prefer Fremont that much?
Just because of the territory rights issue?
Territorial rights, and Fremont/Pacific Commons had a way to finance the ballpark through real estate. Financing in San Jose is not so clear.
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