Economic Impact Report now available

The big takeaway from Wolff's progress report tonight was that the Economic Impact Report for the project is now available. I've only barely scanned through it so far and here are some key points:

• Ballpark is still 30-34,000 seats, cost = $450 million
  
• The 2,900 housing units will be spread over 120 acres, for a density of 24 units per acre. There would be a mix of brownstone-type units and higher density development adjacent to the ballpark, cost = $1.1 billion
  
• 550,000 square feet of "high quality mixed-use/retail," the majority of which would be in a "lifestyle center" (a.k.a. outdoor mall); the remainder would be "entertainment retail in a 'Main Street' environment activated by the residential neighborhood and the ballpark. Cost = $198 million
  
• High-end boutique hotel with only 100 rooms, cost = $30 million
• Total project cost would be $1.8 billion
  
• Total economic impact (using multipliers) would be $3.2 billion
  

Next I'll quote verbatim from the report from its summary of economic impacts:

• The direct economic impact on Alameda County will be approximately $109 million per year from the operations of the Athletics franchise, the operations of concessions within the ballpark, the net new retail spending captured by the Baseball Village retail, and the net new spending captured in the county from the new households in the Ballpark Village.
• Including the indirect and induced “multiplier” effects, the Ballpark Village will generate over $191 million per year in total economic output for Alameda County, and create approximately $50 million each year in personal earnings, which in turn supports approximately 1,762 incremental jobs within Alameda County.
• The net present value over the next 30 years of the total expansion in economic output of Alameda County will be between $700 million and $2 billion, depending upon the discount rate used, as a result of implementing the Ballpark Village proposal.
• Construction of the Ballpark Village is estimated to cost approximately $1.8 billion in today’s dollars. Over the several years it will take to build and absorb the project, over 13,000 full-time equivalent annual jobs will be created, along with almost $600 million in earnings for those workers. Alameda County will experience a one-time economic expansion during the construction period of almost $3.2 billion.
• For the Fremont Unified School District, over $10 million in development fees will be collected from the project.
• For the City of Fremont, over $3.6 million per year will be generated after build out in General Fund revenues. While the costs of providing General Fund municipal services cannot be estimated until a formal development application is submitted, these General Fund revenues will be unrestricted in their use for offsetting costs. Additional revenues will be generated for the City in the form of fees and charges to offset non-general fund services provided, and by the Special Services tax levied within the Pacific Commons development area.
• The Fremont Redevelopment Agency, upon project build out, will be collecting over $15 million per year in today’s dollars in the form of property tax increments and set-aside funds for low- and moderate-income housing.

I need to read more before I post any significant analysis. A couple of notes however:

• Tax increment is mentioned, though not as a method to pay for the project; rather it's used as positive economic impact for the city and county (the usual skepticism applies).
• Additional tax revenue sources are identified, though not the gross receipts tax I found earlier.
  

The report is 60 pages long and is chock full of tables. Enjoy.

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Now for a few observations about the progress report:

• The $500K paid last month was reimbursement for process work
  
• The best method for owning the stadium has not yet been determined, whether public, private, or a mix
  
• Traffic and environmental impact reports are meant to show that the project would have the same or fewer impacts than the currently planned use (office park)
• Jane Gothrop was the last of two speakers and expressed her concern about environmental impacts, urging the council to make sure the project had a full, complete, transparent, open review. To that end, Mayor Wasserman replied that the project would indeed have such a review.
• Council were mostly positive, mostly champing at the bit - especially Anu Natarajan and Bill Harrison, who by trade is a CPA.
  

I've got some reading to do. BTW, Wolff reads this site. And the comments.

Ballpark Village Progress Report - Tuesday, 5/8

From the Fremont City Clerk's office (I used bold for emphasis):

Subject: Ballpark Village Project Progress Report

TO: ALL INTERESTED PARTIES

FROM: CITY OF FREMONT

SUBJECT: BALLPARK VILLAGE PROJECT PROGRESS REPORT

This is to advise you that an agenda item has been scheduled for the regular City Council meeting of Tuesday, May 8, 2007, to hear a progress report from Oakland A's owner Lew Wolff on the Ballpark Village Project. The City Council meeting begins at 7:00 p.m.

The meeting will be held in the City Council Chambers located at 3300 Capitol Avenue, Building A, Fremont, California.

If you have any questions regarding this agenda item, please contact Economic Development Director Daren Fields at (510) 284-4020 or at dfields@ci.fremont.ca.us.

Sincerely,

Dawn G. Abrahamson
City Clerk

Office of the City Clerk

See y'all there. For those of you who won't be there, check out the webcast.

Ballpark Village comparison

Ask and ye shall receive. Bleacher Dave suggested that I compare different ballpark village developments around the country. Luckily I waited until NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg announced his aggressive development plan for the Willets Point neighborhood east of Shea Stadium/CitiField, adding one more point of reference in the process.

For this comparison, I've strictly observed developments around major league ballparks. While there are several examples of village-type projects near minor league facilities, they're typically much smaller in scope and potential economic impact so for now, I've left those out. New Yankee Stadium is also not included because the ancillary development mostly consists of garages and parkland placed near or atop those garages.

The four markets being covered are:

• San Diego's Ballpark District, at the edge of the trendy, gentrified Gaslamp Quarter
• St. Louis's Ballpark Village, on the site of the previous incarnation of Busch Stadium
• Willets Point in Queens, home to mostly junkyards and auto repair shops that are visible from the Shea Stadium parking lot
• Fremont, the only undeveloped site of the four and the only one not in an urban environment

Not to be forgotten is that the first three projects have access to good public transit infrastructure. Fremont may have at best indirect access to BART or commuter trains.

San Diego's Ballpark District actually covers some 26 blocks north and east of PETCO, but it has been scaled back significantly since its inception. $300 million in public financing for the ballpark was exchanged for a promise by Padres owner John Moores to develop much of the surrounding area. The delayed opening of the ballpark occurred before the start of the real estate downturn in the San Diego market. The area's housing prices have flattened or dropped over the last year or so as new construction and conversions have come online, creating a glut of sorts. This phenomenon doesn't affect the ballpark's financing, but San Diego has had plenty of other fiscal problems, namely its debt load and accounting scandals. The city's damaged credit rating (from its $1.4 billion pension crisis) held until March, when the ballpark bonds were refinanced to reflect an interest rate drop from 7.66% (!) to 5.23%.

The Ballpark Village next to new Busch Stadium may look large at $650 million, but it's far smaller than the other projects. Development is being driven by the Cardinals and partner firm The Cordish Company, but last year Cordish requested a subsidy to keep the project moving forward. In February, the city approved a $115 million cash infusion into Ballpark Village. Cordish is a name to watch for as it specializes in large urban redevelopment efforts and pulls in major subsidies in the process. The original agreement between the development partners and the city called for the first block of development to open in 2007. That date has slipped to 2009. In the meantime, the price tag has grown from $300 million to $650 million.

The Willets Point (a.k.a. "Iron Triangle") section of Queens is known for its run down auto shops and junkyards. Previous city leaders have targeted it for massive projects, most notably the 2012 Summer Olympics bid. After MSG/Cablevision effectively killed all hope for Jets/Olympic Stadium on Manhattan's West Side, attention turned to Willets Point for a stadium and press center. The new site of CitiField is sandwiched between the existing Shea Stadium and the Iron Triangle, further propelling Bloomberg to redevelop the area. Existing business owners have pledged to fight eminent domain proceedings to the very end, but we know how that often turns out...

That leaves us with the Cisco Field project. Aesthetically and politically, it has little in common with the other three plans except for that it's a ballpark with ancillary development. In adherence with the path of least resistance concept, it would appear that it has relatively few obstacles for its completion.

• No upfront public money (bonds) is being requested for either the ballpark or ancillary development (as far as we know).
• There are no eminent domain or other major land acquisition problems that could delay development (factoring in the Scott Gas situation).
• Repayment of any privately raised bonds is likely dependent on ancillary development beginning quickly, forcing the developer to mitigate or eliminate any delays associated with the project.

Knowing that these elements should help put the project on the relative fast track, one would hope that Wolff and his people would focus even more attention on transportation solutions, as that's the obvious weak point in the proposal. Even then, there's only so much that can be done.

49ers and (some of) the details

Good session tonight. The 49ers seem to be improving on the PR front. Before I get into that, here's what I got out of the council session.

Finances

• The current stadium estimate is $854 million, including $111 million in inflation costs associated with a 2010 construction start date.
• 81% of the project funding would come from the team, the NFL, and various advance stadium revenue sources (more on that later).
• 19% would come from $160 million in City-derived funding.
• That $160 million contribution does not include money for a garage that would have to be built to accommodate parking requirements for Cedar Fair, the company that currently owns and operates Great America.
• The contribution also does not include money for a potential relocation of the on-site power substation. The Merc pegs this cost at $20-30 million.
• The league's G-3 loan program has been exhausted and it is not known if the 49ers will be able to utilize the "club seat waiver" facility used for other stadiums. The league and the team are still working on the source.
• The team would cover cost overruns.
• A stadium authority would be created to collect project revenues, own and operate the stadium.
• Some revenue would be captured for use in a stadium improvement fund, which would be utilized every 5-7 years.

What isn't known is what the stadium authority actually is. Sure, it's a quasi-public governing body, just as the Coliseum Authority or a mass transit joint-powers authority is. Beyond that, we're getting into a gray area. When one resident asked if the stadium authority was really just an extension of the city (and as such the city would be liable for financing), 49ers CFO Larry MacNeil simply said that the project would not touch the city's general fund.

Okay, but that doesn't answer the question. Stadium authorities are sometimes created to pool resources from various jurisdictions, but that doesn't appear to be the case here as the team would be dealing almost entirely with the city. If the authority is asked to issue bonds and the city owns the authority and the stadium, then it stands to reason that the city is ultimately responsible for a lot of the debt service. Honestly, it makes sense for the 49ers to ask the city to move in this direction since it would allow for access to lower interest and/or tax-free bonds. MacNeil was very careful not to specify which method of city funding would be required. One more interesting tidbit: the Authority would hire 69 full-time employees once the stadium is up and running.

Notice the fine print in the "Stadium Authority Project Funding" line item. There's a ticket tax, naming and pouring rights, the usual suspects. But there's also one other item that doesn't look that familiar: Stadium builders licenses. Care to guess what those are?

Transportation
The team predicts that almost 50,000 game attendees would travel by car and park in the nearby area, which has 32,500 parking spaces within 1.5 miles. The other 18,000 would travel via some mode of public transit.

While I can't argue with the charter bus estimate, the light rail number is overly optimistic. If anything, I can see it used by people who want to park at a VTA Park-n-Ride station (Great Mall, Tamien, Evelyn) and want to avoid parking fees and hassles. Those people would be missing out on tailgating. Tailgating is much more integral to a football experience than any other sport, so I'm skeptical that many would willingly take this option. It doesn't help that only a limited number of 49ers fans even have access to VTA light rail. It's also not known if the VTA estimate contains Caltrain users who might transfer in Mountain View to get to the stadium. Caltrain doesn't have a station within a 3 mile drive of the stadium. A transfer would be required via light rail, bus, or even Capitol Corridor.

The block of Tasman Drive immediately north of the stadium site would be closed on gameday to allow for safe pedestrian circulation between the convention center, light rail station, and the stadium. Several major intersections would have limited or no cross-traffic to funnel stadiumgoers to and from the venue more quickly. Additionally, nearby residential neighborhoods in both Santa Clara and Sunnyvale would have restricted access to prevent fans from parking there. This policy is already in place on one day per year: Independence Day. During the fireworks show, 101 turns into a parking lot.

As for available parking, the 49ers have already talked with several nearby office park landowners and businesses about using some of their spaces. The landowners would get the majority of the parking revenue, while the rest would go to the Authority via parking fees and the remaining revenue cut. Yahoo! bought a large swath of land located kitty corner from the nearby Hilton, and while I don't think they'll design their parking facility strictly with football parking revenue generation in mind, they may want to figure out ways to bring fans in to check out Yahoo! technologies in the nearby tech showcase center. On a related note, West Valley-Mission Chancellor Stan Arteberry endorsed the project, no doubt seeing dollar signs in potential parking revenue (Mission College is slightly under 1 mile southwest of the stadium site).

I'll end tonight with one more table that shows the various costs and revenue sources. Keep in mind that the revenue projections shown are net of debt service. I'll have more thoughts on these numbers tomorrow.

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Update 11:30 AM - There were a few more observations I wanted to put into the original post but it was getting late and my brain was fried.

• Vice Mayor Kevin Moore suggested the possibility of building flexible space into the stadium that could be used for offices, retail, or even an annex for the Convention Center across the street.
• 49 officers would be required on game days for all manner of functions. Some would come from surrounding jurisdictions such as Sunnyvale and San Jose, possibly the Sheriff.
• When the parking and traffic diagram was shown, I couldn't help but think of FedEx Field, which has a similar sprawling parking structure. What Santa Clara has over Landover, MD is a vastly superior freeway infrastructure.
• A better parallel may be Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego. The venerable "Murph" is in the middle of several freeways and a few major arterial roads. Tasman Drive has its equivalent down south in Friars Road, an east-west arterial that repeatedly gets clogged before and after home games.
• The team intends to have the CEQA process start in August or September, making the window for the council to make a decision on the project only 3-4 months.
• Santa Clara residents may have a shuttle available to them from an offsite parking lot only they can use.
• Debt service on the facility would run 25 years. The lease would be 30 years.

49ers Preso to Santa Clara

I plan to attend tonight's Santa Clara City Council session, at which the 49ers will present the important details of their stadium plan. I didn't originally plan to go but I'm curious about how well the 49ers make the sales pitch.

Coincidentally, the last time I attended a City Council session was when A's President Mike Crowley traveled down here to talk up the A's stadium proposal several years ago.

A's file something with Fremont, Quakes-SJSU deal dies

On Wednesday, the A's rather quietly filed " 'an application to negotiate a development agreement,' Fremont Economic Development Director Daren Fields said." What Fremont mayor Bob Wasserman terms "a double, not a home run" is more like sacrifice bunt made to move a runner into scoring position. So far this season, the A's have had only one player who has shown the ability to lay that bunt down. But I digress.

The A's also dropped off $500K with the application. It falls short of what I've been looking for (the application, not the money), but it's a start. The abrupt nature and timing of the application makes me wonder if there is something to my thought that the San Jose and Fremont development plans are somehow tied. There are plenty of factors in the Fremont deal alone that need to be addressed. An externality like San Jose would severely complicate matters. I'd like to think that the Fremont deal is completely standalone, but maybe it isn't and Wolff is scrambling in light of the recent news in San Jose.

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Speaking of San Jose, the shared stadium concept for the Spartans and Quakes has died as neither side could come to an agreement on revenue splits. After looking over the details of the deal, I've come to the conclusion that both sides were right not to budge.

From SJSU's standpoint, Don Kassing had little desire to cede control over a large piece of property to a private party. While it's true that SJSU would not have had to pay for any of the construction, the land itself has significant value despite its mostly deteriorating condition. On the other hand, Earthquakes Soccer, LLC was paying for construction of everything, all they wanted was a cheap land lease to keep overhead low.

The Quakes were willing to pay $1 million guaranteed per year, plus a split of revenue based on the events held. SJSU would get revenue from Spartan events. The Quakes would get revenue from Quakes games. The two parties would split revenue from other events such as concerts.

That $1 million offered per year is essentially a lease payment. If you're the Quakes you think this is a good deal considering the circumstances, and especially in light of other stadium deals in which the team not only doesn't pay for the stadium, but also doesn't pay for anything else like a land lease. If the Quakes have to pay $6 million, that payment severely cuts into the split you were planning with SVS+E, the likely stadium operator. If you're Kassing, you're thinking that $1 million for the Quakes to lease several dozen acres of public/university land is not getting bang for the buck. That may sound like more of a philosophical stand than a hard numbers stand, but Kassing has every right to do it.

In the end the deal has to pencil out for both parties. It obviously didn't in this case, so they both walked away. The Quakes are tied to San Jose if they want to finance the venue since the Edenvale property is the apparent key. There are other site possibilities, but land costs now have to be a concern.

Forbes says $292 million

It's the second week of the season, which means it's time for Forbes to release its list of MLB team valuations. The usual suspects (Yanks, Mets, BoSox, Dodgers, Cubs) lead the pack. Towards the bottom of the list, the A's estimated value jumped 24% to $292 million. That compares to the league averages of 15% rise in value and $431 million.

In the meantime, the A's payroll has gone up much more gradually, only 1.3% from 2005 to 2006 and 6.7% from 2006 to 2007. Before you start on that angry e-mail to Lew Wolff and Billy Beane about how they could've afforded Frank Thomas or, um, someone other desirable free agent, take a look at the following table:

The payroll cost as a function of revenue is the key indicator. That was driven down from well over 60% to just under 55%. The owners must've gotten the memo from Bud Selig to go with the program and keep that player cost at that comfortable 55% threshold. Should franchise value go up again next season, I would expect payroll to jump a proportional amount. If growth is flat, payroll should stay flat.

However, that player cost as a function of value is intriguing. It's akin to home equity, and it will come handy when the time comes to borrow for Cisco Field. It's likely that the media buzz around Cisco Field helped drive the rise in valuation.

The A's ranked 24th on the list and were surrounded by familiar faces: Florida, Pittsburgh, Tampa Bay, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Minnesota, and Cincinnati. Of those teams, the Royals pulled in an astounding $32 million in revenue sharing last year. The Marlins made $43 million (EBITDA) in 2007. It just so happens that the state/local governments and the Marlins are $30 million apart ($60 million over 30 years) in their efforts to fund a new Miami-area ballpark. How about applying some of that profit to bridge the gap and gain some seriously positive PR in the process? Perhaps that's too much for Jeff Loria and David Samson to be magnanimous.

Brrrrrr

That's right, folks. There were over 20K present at Tuesday's game, yours truly included. Most came prepared for the cold despite the blanket giveaway, and most stayed until the end. There has always been talk about Croix de Candlestick pin nights and high winds. Tuesday night gave that legend a run for its money.

Temperature at first pitch was 52 degrees, with a noticeable breeze and the sun setting through partly cloudy skies. By the third inning, that breeze turned into a steady 20 mph wind. I didn't bring my portable weather station to verify it, but I figure the wind chill dipped the temperature another 3-5 degrees.

Funny thing is I remember nights like this in mid May. And late August. With the Warriors wiping the floor with the B-team Mavs next door, a lack of parking could have dissuaded some from attending the game. On the BART train home I heard one rider talk about how he had to park at Wal-Mart for a weekend game. Nevertheless I was pleasantly surprised by the turnout (which had a little something to do with the blankets). The BART bridge was packed as some Warriors fans left the blowout early.

I've touched on this briefly, but I have to ask again: How much does weather affect attendance? I can recall numerous occasions when friends who are casual A's fans chose not to go simply because of the cold. I could be way off base, but I sense that it has a greater impact than some think.

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One note about attendance: The main difference between this season's figures and last season's is the fact that the Yankees didn't play here Opening Day as they did last season. The combination of a Yankees game and Opening Day effectively removed one date from pulling a sellout crowd. That normally represents a loss of 10,000 fans or more.

San Jose Love Triangle

The Merc's ruffling feathers at Glass R2D2 in their attempts to get the pols to release information about negotiations between San Jose and Lew Wolff. Barry Witt's already gotten the crux of the story, what remains are - what else? - details. Mayor Chuck Reed would prefer to draft and release a report summarizing the discussions, while others want the MOU (memorandum of understanding) between the two parties and supporting documentation. In requesting the report, Reed cites the need for sensitivity while the parties are still in negotiation. The hot topic isn't so much the stadium at this point as the rezoning-entitlements deal that Wolff is pursuing in the Edenvale neighborhood (South San Jose).

Certainly some of the Merc's muckraking comes from the notion that they're trying to hold Reed up to the standard he created for himself when, during last year's mayoral campaign, he claimed to be the true plain-talking, "open government" candidate. The platform earned Reed a landslide victory, so Reed has to be careful to manage this situation carefully. The ramifications of a bad negotiation don't stop with the Quakes/SJSU stadium, they extend to Reed's plans for redevelopment in his old North San Jose stomping grounds as well.

Not to be ignored is SJSU, the entity that owns the land on which the new stadium will be built. Negotiations continue between them and the A's on revenue sharing, enough that University President Don Kassing came off sounding less than optimistic:

"I don't know if it's going to come together," Kassing said. "I say that not to be pessimistic, but I don't know. It would consume 40 acres approximately, so we would provide a parcel of land - they put a commercial activity on that land and then make money.
"So we provide an opportunity for them to make money by having a parcel of land. We don't donate it, it's our land, belongs to the State of Calif. - San Jose State, and we want a return on that land, and so far we haven't found it."

I sense this is just some poker table bluster. Kassing has every right to make sure SJSU gets a fair deal especially when dealing with a private wheeler-dealer like Wolff. But there has to be a recognition of two things:

• The stadium may be the best chance for SJSU to get a modern facility, which should help its suddenly resurgent football program.
• MLK Library II became hugely successful as a result of a necessary partnership between SJSU and San Jose, so there is a precedent for getting a modern facility built that doesn't jeopardize the integrity of the school. In fact, there's already an example of what the Quakes are pursuing in Carson, where the AEG-operated Home Depot Center sits on the Cal State-Dominguez Hills campus.
  

Practically speaking, people are getting excited a little too early in the process. Even if the city didn't disclose any details of their negotiations prior to Wolff's presentation, the public's still going to have every opportunity to scrutinize the project in its entirety, including the rezoning scheme and public benefits such as new soccer fields. I understand where all of the interested parties (including the Merc) are coming from. Still, everyone needs to chill.

There is one other quote from Kassing from the Spartan Daily article linked above:

"I can't tell you everything because I don't want to compromise the confidentiality of the conversations," Kassing said in a press conference on April 3. "But the Earthquakes, through a really creative idea of Lew Wolff's, would seek from the city the rezoning of a parcel of property … and change the zoning from commercial/industrial to residential. Apparently when you do that, the value goes way up… . That difference would be used to build the stadium."

The difference would be used to build the stadium? That sounds familiar...

Twins Show and Tell

After the Twins agreed to bridge the gap on the land price dispute for their downtown ballpark, they unveiled renderings of the 40,000-seat, open air stadium. The design is very much signature HOK, but unlike some of their more sprawling projects, they and local firm HGA were constrained by an 8-acre site. Somehow they managed to squeeze a million square feet into the plan, which from the planning standpoint is a marvel.

The exterior would look more original if the sketch didn't strongly evoke PETCO Park. Instead of PETCO's sandstone, the as yet unnamed/unsponsored Minneapolis ballpark will be clad in limestone.

This cross-section shows a good cantilever in the club level and a decent one in the terrace level. Notice how the loading area (yellow) is underneath the sidewalk adjacent to the ballpark.

This cross-section is of the left field seats. It's a two-level structure with an upper deck that lines up with the lower deck. There are also a couple of interesting quirks. The area between the "exterior" wall and the light rail station is so narrow that the ballpark's circulation ramp actually hangs over the sidewalk. They even managed to fit additional back-of-the-house facilities underneath the train station.

Here's the real kicker. You might not recognize it immediately, but there are three - count 'em - three parking garages on top of a major road. That's no ordinary street - it's Interstate 394, a spur that runs from the suburbs to downtown Minneapolis. If they are really planning to do this, they better save their pennies for the parking infrastructure. It will not be cheap.

Correction: The parking garages are already in place thanks to work completed as part of earlier projects. According to this link, Ramp A cost $64 million.

Biz of Baseball's Wolff Interview

Maury Brown dropped a quick note to tell me that his interview with Lew Wolff was going to be up tonight. It's now available. Brown covered a lot of ground with the interview. Wolff, for his part, tackled a couple of pressing topics, though he revealed nothing new about the transportation situation.

Regarding Scott Specialty Gases, Wolff said this:

The Scott Gas issue is one of relocation and not of a soil problem.

Where are those misinformed cries about toxic waste again?

Maury also had a really good question about how the ballpark deal was conceived:

BizBall: In your opinion, is the Ballpark Village concept a unique, large market opportunity, or do you think that this represents the future of stadium construction (and how to fund it), regardless of market size? Or, is it specific to a particular market and situation?

Wolff: Well, that’s a very astute question. I have to say that if a ballpark can be accommodated in the core of a community—in the urban area—I think that has lots of pluses. Like San Francisco, San Diego, some of those parks. In our case we had to sort of create an urban center for two reasons: one, to make it esthetically interesting. We don’t want the ballpark surrounded by parking. We want it to be, as we call it, ‘a sculpture within a project.’ And secondly, since we are not getting the traditional public assistance, we need to have ancillary development to help support the cost of the facility.

This goes back to the idea of creating somewhere out of nowhere. John King's excellent two-part series in the Chronicle covers several urban-type developments in traditionally suburban areas, including some in the Bay Area. (I can already imagine the debate that will ensue.)

Opening Night notes

Tomorrow, Maury Brown at The Biz of Baseball will post the interview he conducted Monday with Lew Wolff. Over the weekend Maury kindly asked me if I had any questions to contribute, but I didn't have anything that I didn't think wouldn't be covered by the development proposal and follow-up questions.

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Chron's John Shea notes that Ron Dellums sat with Wolff last night as Wolff's opening night guest. Shea got a quote that could be interpreted as leading or meaningless, depending on your view of the A's move:

"I like him a lot," Wolff said of Dellums. "He said, 'Look, if there's a way you can stay or we can help you, let me know.' But we need that space (in Fremont). When the Coliseum opened, it must've been fantastic, but it's aging. It's 40 years old."

As for San Jose, Wolff said, "That won't happen in my reign."

Fremont wants the ballpark and housing components to be joined at the hip, and I don't expect them to budge on that stance. Shea continues:

So it's Fremont or bust -- or stick around the Coliseum for another decade or two, receive millions in revenue sharing from MLB, draw a couple of million fans annually even though they're denied access to the upper deck and always turn a profit.

How bad is that for an alternative?

Not bad if you've been a hardcore fan for several decades. Not bad at all if you want to go to many games every season for cheap. Of course, it's not you that matters that much. It's a bad alternative for Bud Selig and the Lodge of owners, who really don't care to see a team continually receiving revenue sharing while consistently outperforming their own teams on the field. I'm certain that Selig's main motivation for staying on through 2009 and perhaps longer is that he wants to see the last three stadium deals through. It would serve as his crowning achievement.

If we're going to pick this apart, let's go back to Dellums and Wolff. Wolff stated that he needed the Fremont land, and I've already said that Fremont has no interest in allowing the housing development and rezoning without the ballpark. But what if there were an alternative in Oakland?

Take a look at Chip Johnson's review of Dellums' first 100 days:

The veteran politician and longtime congressman is long on social issues, short on day-to-day operations and shows troubling signs of meddling with development.

And in the one development project where he has taken an active role, Dellums effectively killed it. In March, Dellums blocked a proposal to build a 1,575-unit condominium project atop light industry in a desolate section of West Oakland.

The West Oakland project under consideration is developer Peter Sullivan's mixed-use project at Mandela Parkway and West Grand Ave. The main reason cited for pulling the project was the desired preservation of Oakland's diminishing industrial areas. City Councilmember Nancy Nadel approved the move:

"I felt the report wasn't in the best interests of the city," Nadel said. "It made me feel better that the zoning commissioners restated their intent to implement the zoning called for in the General Plan."

What if Dellums' staff are working on a ballpark proposal incorporating that piece of land? The housing component would still be needed, and such a change would effectively be the same kind of rezoning that was pooh-poohed last month, only on a larger scale. Though there's zero indication that this is actually being discussed, it can't be ruled out completely if Dellums is interested in rolling up his sleeves. Then again, West Oakland is Nadel's domain, and judging from the fans' reaction to her in one of the "Choose or Lose" rallies, they don't think she's much of an ally. BTW, the location is 3/4 mile from the West Oakland BART station.

It doesn't hurt Wolff to play nice with Oakland, even though the situation there looks bleak as it relates to the A's.

4400 - A Magic Number

No, this post is not about the sci-fi series on the USA Network which is entering its fourth season.

Details about the SJSU/Quakes project have given hints about how the A's-Cisco Field deal will be structured. Before I explain further, take a look at the following table:

First off, it's utterly amazing that the A's stadium, which will hold only 5,000 or so additional people, will cost over six times as much. The ballpark is considerably more complex thanks to additional amenities and MLB stadium requirements, but I'll cover the details of that another day because it can be explained.

The real curiosity is the number of housing units being pitched to help finance each project. For the ballpark it's 2,900. For the stadium it's 1,500. Cisco Field will have over 100 acres of ancillary development to assist (housing, retail, commercial), while no such development is possible at SJSU's South Campus. Included in the SJSU stadium deal will be the creation of public soccer fields nearby (albeit off campus and with some city funds).

Why would the stadium project need 1,500 units? And why would the ballpark, which costs over six times as much, need only 2,900? It's difficult to quantify the impact of the ballpark village portion, but it can't be that much. The volatility of the housing market could make estimating the entitlements' impact difficult as well. Somehow each project has to add up, right? So this leaves me with one possibility:

The San Jose housing sales may help fund the ballpark.

I've been wrong before, and when the details finally emerge I may well be proven wrong on this hypothesis. Right now, the numbers don't add up unless both projects are put together - at least when compared side-by-side. It's likely that Wolff is courting the same investors for both projects, and that moving funds around to get the bills paid may be the only way to get the ballpark (the main project) built. Even if it's true, it may not be considered a big deal since in the end both deals may be viewed as fair - at least on their own terms. Still, it remains something of an eyebrow-raiser, and makes the stadium effort appear less altruistic than how it's currently perceived by some.

All the more reason to get the details out in the open, no?

49ers Economic Impact Report

I've had a chance to read the 49ers' 24-page economic impact report, and I've come to one conclusion:

• It's irrelevant when applied to the A's situation.
  

Other coverage of the report has brought up how optimistic the direct and indirect impact projections are, thanks to use of the multiplier effect. The plan looks good when framed as beneficial to Santa Clara City and County. Patterns of spending within the City are used as an argument against "displacement," or the tendency of one particular form of entertainment (football) to divert disposable income away from other forms (movies, music, other sports, etc.).

The County-specific focus makes the study somewhat flawed. While there would be positive impact on Santa Clara City and County, it's essentially the same base of 49ers fans moving south. The Bay Area as a whole wouldn't be affected significantly, except that a new stadium would bring in a large number of construction jobs for the construction period. At least the study doesn't take into account potential windfalls from ancillary development, since that is an unknown at this point.

The study isn't applicable to the A's situation because unlike the Niners, the A's are staying in the same county. Assuming that both the new ballpark and football stadium end up publicly-owned, there would be no new property taxes associated with either facility. Sales taxes on materials used in construction could be beneficial, but that depends on whether Wolff is aiming for a rebate or waiver, which can't be ruled out.

A place like Blackhawk, where many athletes are known to live, is equidistant from both the Coliseum and the Cisco Field site based on driving distances. So it's likely that Billy Beane (and, er, Joe Morgan) would stay there. Palo Alto would substitute for the Marina district. Santana Row would as well to a lesser extent. (Perhaps Stanley Burrell's old house in the Fremont hills is available.) In other words, not much impact from player and front office relocations - especially if any relocations happen within Alameda County.

Of course, studies of this type generally don't take a macro view. They're designed to convince specific elected officials and placate their constituents. Due to the complexity of the ballpark village concept, I expect the Wolff study to have a slightly different tenor, such as highlighting positive indirect impact while accentuating how the project won't affect the public coffers. The Niners, who are seeking public funding of some kind, stayed far away from any kind of cost-benefit analysis.

Splash hits in HD

The Giants unveiled their new scoreboard/video board just in time for the start of the season, and even on video it looks impressive. The new board is the centerpiece of several tweaks to AT&T Park, including the new ultra-premium Lexus Dugout Club. The new club has 108 padded seats with extra leg room and a dozen 17-inch LCD screens lining the backstop.

At 31' high x 103' long, the board is four times the size of one of the current Diamond Vision boards at the Coliseum. Combine the Coliseum's two video board and monochrome scoreboard sets, and you get about the same amount of display space. Boy has technology changed to make that display space more dramatic!

The lineup and defensive displays are decent, along with the designated video space above the line score. The line score itself looks quite small though I'm sure it's quite legible. I'll have to check it out in person to know for sure. The sponsorship nods on the lower corners are well-sized and out of the way. There are parts of the display that look a bit contrasty, so I imagine that colors and fonts will undergo tweaks to find a happy medium. I'd prefer to see a screen or two that looks like the front and back of a baseball card, if only for nostalgia's sake. There should be a sponsorship available from Upper Deck or Topps if someone works the phones.

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Update 12:00 AM: As I expected, there were complaints about the legibility of certain display items, such as statistics in the lineup. The tweaks may come early.

Show me the money, Niners

I was going to compare the San Francisco and Santa Clara 49ers stadium concepts in this space, but I'll refrain because Ann Killion's column in the Merc captures my thinking almost exactly. For the the Niners it all comes down to one question: How does it get financed? Very little of the information released about the two sites talks about who pays for what. I don't think this is the 49ers hiding anything, I think they simply don't know.

Maybe they're looking for a ginormous loan from the NFL, such as the one approved on Tuesday by the owners for the $1.7 billion Giants/Jets stadium. The previous debt limit imposed on teams that applied for the league's G-3 stadium loan program was $150 million. How much would the 49ers need above that initial amount? The $200 million being sought from Santa Clara's utility reserve? More?

The San Francisco plan doesn't shed anymore light, though to be fair it was conceived by the City and developer Lennar with little input from the team. In the proposal, there's no mention of financing either, except that the City vows not to tap the General Fund to make the stadium alternative work.

There's a good deal of optimism coming from 49er headquarters, but there isn't much substance to back it up. Even though Lew Wolff hasn't yet published the A's plans, at least he's given some indication as to what he plans to do, and has backed it up with land acquisitions and the Cisco partnership. In Santa Clara, the tide is already starting to turn against the stadium proposal with the release of data showing potential rate hikes if the Niners go with the reserve fund. They need to get control of the situation. Stat.

Glenn Dickey's Examiner Column

So what we have here is your garden variety shoot first, ask questions later piece from a well-respected, longtime sports columnist. It does little to inform fans about the process, and frankly does a disservice to its readers. But what do I know? I'm a mere blogger.

Dickey takes a little swipe at Fremont for being "not really a city but a collection of small towns," and attributes that characteristic to the lack of progress in extending BART south. Followers of the WSX and BART-to-SV extensions know that Fremont's size has little to do with it. Both projects were packaged contingent upon funding happening in Santa Clara County. No one city has sufficient enough clout to extend BART, not San Francisco, Oakland, Antioch, Livermore, Fremont, or San Jose.

Then Dickey starts with the "bait-and-switch" possibility:

A’s managing partner Lew Wolff had made proximity to a BART line a condition for a new site in Oakland. When he announced his preferred Oakland site, across 66th Avenue from the Coliseum, he insisted that a new BART station must be built there.

Now, the official word from the A’s is that a BART station nearby is not a requirement for the new site.

What’s going on here?

It's simple. The BART station condition was based on the idea that the ballpark would be in Oakland. Last time I checked, Fremont was not within Oakland city limits. As the stadium site moves south, it draws different demographics. Since much of the new demographic is going to be South Bay residents who don't have the privilege of a having a nearby BART station, BART obviously won't be a requirement for them. It's the South Bay contingent that's expected to make up for much of the lost BART-based fans.

Let's take a look at Dickey's primary argument:

Never forget that Wolff has made his money in real estate. His projects have included much of what has been built in downtown San Jose.

The projected baseball park in Fremont would be part of a much larger real estate project, including retail and housing. To build that, Wolff needs to get zoning changes. The lure of a new park will certainly be enough to get those changes.

I believe that, having got the zoning changes and started his real estate project, Wolff will then announce that it really isn’t feasible to build a new park there.

And then, the bidding will begin from cities eager to get the A’s.

I'll keep bringing this up until I'm blue in the face: Fremont's control of the zoning is their leverage. Why on earth would they approve the land development deal without the ballpark? They're not interested in changing the city's charter and adding residents without new revenue streams to go with it. Fremont's angle is keeping the entertainment dollar in the city. Accepting separate plans for the housing and ballpark village kills their leverage. The entire project has to be submitted with all parts included, otherwise environmental and economic impact studies can't be done properly. In the end Fremont has to certify the studies associated with the project to let it proceed. If it doesn't, Wolff is stuck with a bunch of land in South Fremont that isn't appreciating much.

If Wolff wanted to play the normal stadium extortion game, he'd have done what the Marlins have foolishly done in Miami, destroying all goodwill with the community even after two World Series titles in a decade. Or easier yet, he'd have simply announced the A's were going to move to Vegas while mayor Oscar Goodman still was interested and not jaded from being used by other teams' owners and Bud Selig. Portland had a better chance to be in play when Wolff first took over the team. San Antonio has felt the sting as much as Las Vegas. It's only getting more expensive to build a ballpark anywhere with each passing year. And Wolff's not getting any younger.

What about the Cisco angle? Why would Cisco sign its name so early to a plan that could become a PR nightmare if Wolff decides to pull a bait-and-switch job? Cisco could have easily waited until the A's moved, began construction, and started taking bids for naming rights. That would've been pain-free. Instead, Cisco is a partner in this venture, and not just because the ballpark would be a tech showcase. Cisco wants to be cool like Valley cohorts Google and Apple, and it won't get there backing something that isn't substantive.

Still not convinced? Wolff submitted the Quakes/SJSU stadium proposal last week, and guess what - it looks similar in some ways to the Cisco Field concept. The financing plan involves rezoning of industrial land and turning profits from home development into funding for the stadium. Now if Wolff had the Giants' territorial rights over turned it's likely he'd have used the same rezoning plan as part of a downtown San Jose ballpark project. Since territorial rights aren't getting changed anytime soon, it makes more sense to use try to pitch it for the Quakes' stadium effort.

Sadly, there'll be conspiracy theorists who'll continue to shake their fists until the first fan walks through a Cisco Field turnstile. I can't blame Wolff for not worrying about convincing them. There's little he can do about it other than build the ballpark. Even then, many of them won't come.

SJ Giants Exit, Enter SJ A's?

Last November we discussed how the A's move to Fremont might affect the San Jose Giants. The move would invoke baseball's Rule 52, which requires consent by or compensation for a team whose territory has been encroached. Now it appears that a decision is about to be made. With no likelihood for the $8 million being sought by the Giants' owners to renovate San Jose Municipal Stadium, the state of the ballpark forces their hand. Both the SJ and SF Giants have wanted Muni to be upgraded for some time, though neither wants to foot much of the bill for it.

The SJ Giants are approaching their 20th year in existence, the longest continuous tenure of any team in San Jose. Over those two decades they've cultivated a small, devoted fanbase while showcasing *ahem* a few future SF Giants. Should the team move there will be a void that a major league team can't quite fill. Minor league baseball has an intimacy and pace that can't be captured at a major league park.

Don't cry too much for the SJ Giants' owners. Even one of the majority owners, Dick Beahrs, admits that "If the team moved elsewhere, I think you can make an argument that economically it makes sense, but we wouldn't be getting together on Thursdays in July to watch a game together." The owners will certainly be well-compensated. There's still a movement afoot for a team in the North Bay, which certainly sounds like a natural fit once the Bay Area baseball realignment has begun. The fans, however, won't receive much solace.

As it stands, the A's are still early in a relationship with new high-A affliate Stockton. The Ports play in a shiny new riverfront ballpark of their own, and it's difficult to envision that arrangement changing. The A's did operate two high-A franchises in early Beane era, so who's to say that can't happen again? Consider this:

The A's could bring SJ Muni into the SJSU-Earthquakes project, which makes sense because it's the same part of town. The A's, Quakes, and San Jose partner on Muni renovation, which would benefit the A's and San Jose (good PR), and SJSU (updated facility). While the Giants' tradition would leave, a new one could start for the A's. Stockton's market isn't threatened by a team in central San Jose. Bay Area fans would have an even greater opportunity to see A's draftees matriculate through the farm system - which tends to pay more dividends than the Giants'.

If the concept sounds bizarre, keep this in mind: One of the first sports teams Lew Wolff invested in was the late 70's San Jose Missions. Wolff has experience with the minors. The Mets and Yankees both have short-season teams in the five boroughs (Coney Island and Staten Island, respectively).

Of course, there are business reasons for not having a minor league club in San Jose. San Jose is already full of non-major league sports franchises that compete against each other (Sabercats, Stealth), and having a baseball team would dilute the market. A baseball team would also compete with the parent A's to an extent, and certainly with the Quakes for the budget sports dollar. Also, how would pro-MLB San Jose partisans feel about such a move? Would they consider it patronizing? I'd like to see the A's preserve minor league baseball for the multitude of reasons described above, but it requires some scratch and someone else to operate the team, and the economics may not allow such a situation to occur.

Is there room for another sports talk station?

Note: I'm picking this up from a previous post's comments thread.

We can all agree that the KNBR is skewed towards the SF teams and covers the W's mostly because they're under contract. The Oakland teams get token coverage, while the Sharks get mentioned because the Razor loves them. You can't fault KNBR for catering to their vested interests. Sports talk is not exactly high up on the journalistic integrity scale, so to hold them to task for this skew is laughable. To have another sports talk station makes sense for fans of those affected teams.

However, that's not the issue here.

The real question is: "Is there room in the Bay Area for another sports talk station?" The two KNBR's constitute 1 1/2 stations due to simulcasts (Razor & Mr. T), sloughing off W's or 49ers games when they conflict with the Giants or the Razor & Mr. T, Giants midnight baseball replays, and much of the throwaway syndicated programming out there (late night ESPN radio, most FOX Sports radio). Programming a sports talk station is inherently expensive and risky. Before you answer the question above, consider the following:

• How do you balance expensive, locally produced programming against cheaper (and less popular syndicated shows)?
• What marketing strategy do you use? Is the station an anti-KNBR? An East Bay station? A "fair and balanced" station? A more edgy station?
• Do you succumb to "partnering" with ESPN (Eternally Self-Promoting Network)?
  
• How much specialized programming do you include? Examples: boxing, outdoors/fishing, extreme sports, fantasy sports, auto racing, horse racing
  
• What kinds of partnerships do you strike with local universities to carry their events?
• What kind of sports news operation do you run? Do you cover every local pro sports event or cover events selectively?
• Is it worth it to pay for higher priced, big name radio talent?
• Should the station have sports programming exclusively, or a mix of sports and other news/talk?
  
• How much do you want shows to be content driven (interviews) as opposed to caller driven?
• How much time do you spend on pre- and post-game shows?
• How much do gimmicks factor in? Examples: scantilly-clad women, contests and giveaways
  

Next, let's consider the market. The last published Arbitron ratings I've seen have KNBR at 2.3 for November '06-January '07 in the San Francisco market (14th) and 1.8 in the San Jose market (20th). KTCT (a.k.a. KNBR-1050) hit 0.6 (35th) in SF and 0.4 (40th) in SJ, which explains why they don't spend much on local programming.

Let's talk a look at the shares for sports talk stations in more sports-crazy markets (Arbitron ratings courtesy of Radio Daily News):

I threw in LA facetiously, of course. Other than LA, a market's total sports radio share appears to typically hover between 3 and 5 (3-5% of the market). The combined share of the two KNBR's is nearly 3, and in a place as diverse and segmented as the Bay Area, can you reasonably ask for more? Would the addition of another station take away a 1 share from someone else, whether it was KNBR or other types of programming? While the sports offerings may not be diverse, it could be argued that the market penetration for sportstalk is close to maxed out.

Then again, maybe it isn't. A look at the dropoff from the SF market to the SJ market indicates that the further outside of SF, the less popular KNBR is in general. The SF market includes Oakland, so the pooling of both east and west sides of the bay presents an inaccurate picture in ratings. The East Bay must be weaker than SF and the Peninsula. Perhaps an opportunity is there for an East Bay/South Bay oriented station, one that caters to non-SF teams. There's an obvious marketing angle in presenting the station as the opposite of the so-called effete, wine-sipping types to the west.

Wolff and A's broadcasting veep Ken Pries are paying attention to the market. Pries has indicated that if a station were available locally, the A's would be interested. There's an element of timing to such an acquisition, because in the recent past most local radio station sales have been as part of huge corporate portfolios, such as the Susquehanna sale. It's possible that the rumored sale of various Clear Channel stations may make one or more individual stations available locally, but it could lead to more of the same corporate horse trading.

Thankfully, other teams' owners have already set the trend by buying their own radio properties. The following are two excellent case studies:

• A year ago, Angels owner Arte Moreno paid $42 million for KMXE, a 50,000-watt AM outfit in LA. Formerly a Spanish-language news/talk/sports outlet, KMXE was transformed into the Angels' spanish flagship. Over the last year, more English-language programming has been introduced, and Moreno changed the station's call letters to KLAA. It is thought that once ESPN-710's deal with the Angels elapses after this coming season, the English broadcast will move to KLAA. But what will happen to the Spanish broadcasts? Moreno has done a skillful job of marketing to that market, and he may be doing the team a disservice by not utilizing the station for Spanish. One way or another, the station promises to significantly boost Angels revenues.
• A few months prior to Moreno's purchase, a company called Red Zebra Broadcasting bought three low-power stations in the Washington, DC area. Red Zebra is run by Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder. The three stations form a virtual "flagship" by simulcasting the same programming (ESPN radio and Redskins games). Depending on where you are in the market, you may be best served by listening to either WWXT 92.7-FM in Prince Frederick, MD, WWXX 94.3-FM in Warrenton, VA, or WXTR 730-AM in Alexandria, Virginia. Plans to buy two additional stations in Maryland were scuttled in January. If this sounds familar, that's it mimics what the A's were doing last year with two low-powered stations - though the A's didn't own the stations. Should two or more low-power stations owned by the same conglomerate become available, it's certainly within reason for Wolff to look into purchasing them, price being a major factor. Once purchased, an application can be filed to boost a station's signal to 20,000 or even 50,000 watts if it's AM, even more if FM.
  

Just as with the stadium situation, patience is required when looking at the radio market. The FCC isn't granting new licenses to anyone, so this radio wait is like looking for a rent-controlled apartment in Manhattan. It requires timing, skill, and a bit of luck. The industry may shake out even more over the next two years, so with that aforementioned luck the A's may get themselves a station yet.

Cali's a tough place, Noll: Fremont over Santa Clara

The Merc's Mike Swift has two good pieces today. The first covers the generally anti-public funding attitude for stadia in California. The other article has noted sports economist Roger Noll's skepticism over the 49ers' Santa Clara stadium plans, while also saying that the Fremont site is "much more viable."

The only thing missing from Swift's article is SB 4, the 2005 bill that flew under the radar during the legislative session, only to be stillborn as it went through committee. We should be proud of the fact that we aren't likely to get extorted as our counterparts are in Pennsylvania, Florida, and even New York. It doesn't matter that California alone would be one the world's top ten economies. Let's remember who would be competing for public funding if it were allowed at the state level (which it hasn't for decades):

1. A's ballpark in Oakland/Alameda County
2. San Francisco 49ers stadium
3. San Diego Chargers stadium
4. Sacramento Kings arena
5. New LA football stadium to attract an NFL team
6. San Jose Earthquakes stadium

As for Noll, he's right. While the $200 million being pursued is only 1/4 of the 49ers' projected budget, it's still a sizable chunk for any municipality, let alone Santa Clara. If a vote is required - which looks likely - I don't know how well that'll go over. A while back I spoke with one of the Santa Clara project's proponents, and one of the advantages about Santa Clara being pitched - the city's ownership of an electric utility allows it to control and lower prices - could be placed at risk if the money backing that price control is leveraged. Meanwhile, Lew Wolff continues to make appearances in Fremont, yesterday reading to kids at Niles Elementary.

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One other nice blurb from China Basin: PG&E will install new solar panels in three different areas at AT&T Park, enough to generate 123 kW, or "enough juice to power the ballpark's scoreboard for an entire season." Applause to both the Giants and PG&E for doing what they can to take a small load off the power grid.

Update (3/21): PG&E somehow "forgot" to tell its ratepayers that they would end up footing the bill for the project. Oops. So much for the good PR.

Timeline

Lew Wolff sat down with long-time A's beat man Mychael Urban to talk shop. There are a few quips here and there about the state of the baseball side of the team, soccer, and the talked-to-death tarp matter. There's also a little insight into planning for the ballpark, though you shouldn't expect me to get too much out of these tea leaves:

MLB.com: Obviously, the stadium issue is front and center with most A's fans. Where does everything stand with the proposed park in Fremont?
Wolff: It's the most complicated transaction that I've ever seen. It's a win-win-win for everybody involved, but one of the problems we have in baseball is that everyone thinks the baseball teams should underwrite everything. I'm not talking about the public. I'm talking about various constituencies we deal with. So I'm confident that we have a great program, but there's a lot of constituencies we have to satisfy, and we're trying to do that. So it's hard to set a date for when it's going to happen. If everything went great, it could be 36 months before we open it. But that's if everybody was cooperating exactly the way I want them to, which I'm not expecting. On a fast-track basis, we could open in 36 months, but it's probably going to be closer to 60 months. Right now we have a certain number of issues that we need to agree to, and we're getting close. We're trying to stay in Alameda County, because that's our district, and we don't have any leverage. We can't say, "If you don't do this, we're moving to Omaha." Every other team I know of [that's tried to get a new stadium] has had an alternate site. We're trying to do this without that. We just want to get it done here.

That's about as pragmatic an approach as one could expect. Wolff's feelings about the "leverage" situation are reflective of the realities of the East Bay market, and by extension, the South Bay as well. Honestly, what other owner have you heard or read recently that has said that he doesn't have any leverage? Leverage is the name of the usual stadium-building game, folks, and it's clear that a different game is being played here.

The window of 36 to 60 months is nothing new. Let's establish these timeline scenarios, remembering that in general it takes 12-18 months to complete and approve an environmental impact report and 24-30 months to build a stadium. Even though the ballpark village and surrounding residential development are integral to the plan, for now we'll focus solely on the ballpark itself. We'll use a hypothetical date of April 1, 2007 for the development application submission.

First, Lew's worst case:

• There's a clear line between the two major phases, but in a worst case scenario the line can turn into a messy gap. Delays could come in terms of getting financing (San Diego), legal problems such as court injunctions (Cal's Memorial Stadium retrofit), or last-minute concessions that have to be made by the developer or city (Forest City Uptown in Oakland).
  
• Even in this case, the A's have some wiggle room since their last option year at the Coliseum is 2013. They would still be eager to get everything in place ASAP because by that point they'll have invested their $500 million on the ballpark with nothing to show for it.
  

Next, Lew's best case:

• In previous posts I had more-or-less ruled out 2010 because the schedule would be too compressed. It's not impossible as you can see from the timeline above, but far too many things would have to fall perfectly into place to make it happen. For instance:
  
• Unless the EIR and planning pieces went through without significant review, one year is too short. An EIR for the Cisco campus project is already on the books, but it was heavily dependent on the land's planned use. The ballpark village is a night-and-day contrast from an office park. Plus there's no telling what concessions will have to be made regarding the 2900 townhomes, some of which could run really close to the wetlands preserve.
• 24 months to build the ballpark may well be doable, since Cisco Field will be a smaller and less complex building it can't be ruled out.
  

Finally, the likely scenario:

• This scenario includes a full 18-month study period and 30-month construction window. There are 3 months or so of padding in the middle to accommodate any changes that may occur in the schedule. What's important is that there'd be no need to rush - and rushing costs a lot of money.
  

No surprise: SVLG supports Pacific Commons

Silicon Valley Leadership Group, the Valley's biggest lobby, has officially endorsed the A's move to Fremont. There's no drama here, since Lew Wolff has spoken recently at Silicon Valley functions and was a guest on SVLG head Carl Guardino's radio show two weeks ago. The actual endorsement was mainly a formality, since the tide changed from a pro-San Jose effort (remember Baseball San Jose?) nearly a year ago.

The endorsement won't accelerate the project in any way, but it lends a significant amount of political weight and credibility. If, as rumored, many SVLG members are already on board -with checks for suites, premium seats, and sponsorships ready to go - then the public can start to think of the plan as more concrete. It's hard to dismiss cash. Of course, the A's still need to actually submit the development plan and get it approved before people start patting each other on the back.

Guardino said that the project "positively addresses our Valley's housing challenges." For years the SVLG has lobbying for increased housing in the Valley, a need that the project's 2,900 townhomes would start to address. SVLG has also been a major supporter of BART-to-Silicon Valley and Smart Growth initiatives such as transit-oriented development (TOD). They certainly have nothing to lose in backing the project. If SVLG had input anywhere, it may have been the change from condos (in the Coliseum North plan - the high-rises) to low-slung townhomes, which are a far more familiar housing mode in the Valley and may be considered by some to be more family-friendly (and negatively, more car-friendly).

The big clincher would be if the housing at Pacific Commons could somehow positively affect the approval for the BART-to-Silicon Valley project. As it stands, the project's 1.25-mile aerial distance from the planned Warm Springs station places it outside the radius required for nearby or adjacent TOD housing. If the ballpark village were located next to NUMMI instead, the BART extension would probably qualify for additional federal funds or at least have a better chance of getting approved.

Oh give me land, lots of land...

It seems like everyone building a new stadium is struggling with land problems. In Minneapolis and DC, eminent domain actions were able to get the ball rolling but the different municipalities and private landowners still have not settled on final prices for the parcels. In DC's case, the final land cost threatens to break the project's $611 million cap. Hennepin County is not nearly as far along, making the impasse force the county to either look elsewhere for a site, or to construct a deal involving new entitlements for the landowners.

Down in South Florida, sights have shifted towards the Orange Bowl, where a plan is coming together to tear down the venerable, 70 year-old football stadium and replace it with a new home for the Marlins. The University of Miami football team would move to Dolphin Stadium, where the Marlins currently play. There were previous discussions about a downtown site, but it appears that the 9-acre Orange Bowl site may be more feasible.

Back on the left coast, the City of San Francisco is pushing to speed up the Navy's transfer of Hunters Point to the city. The former shipyard, landfill, and nuclear research facility was split into 6 pieces to help accelerate the process, but now the City wants to take over the whole 500-acre pie. All told, cleanup could cost nearly $1 billion.

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That brings us to Fremont. The generic AP article that went out last week has a somewhat sensationalistic tone. It warns of the "cloud of deadly arsine floating as far as seven-tenths of a mile away from the plant." Visions of Love Canal, the Cuyahoga River, and mushroom clouds abound, right?
Of course, that ignores the fact that Scott Specialty Gases is on a one-acre plot, and as mentioned before, is more of a distribution facility than a smoke-belching, sprawling chemical plant.

That's not to say that the SSG situation won't have to be addressed. As developers, the A's and their future partners certainly don't want to have such a potential hazard near thousands of homes and ballpark visitors. And SSG probably doesn't want to be a dangerous neighbor.
So there is a solution, and it probably doesn't involve mitigation because mitigation tends to be costly (for all parties). The parties could draw out the negotiations for a while longer while construction starts, but if it looks like SSG has a decent chance of staying put, the A's will have to include mitigation in the EIR, and that's not going to look as attractive as having a full master plan free of issues.

Let's put things in perspective. The SSG situation is small potatoes compared to the problems being encountered in the aforementioned cities/projects. If I were Lew, I wouldn't consider trading places with my counterparts in SF, Miami, or the Twin Cities.

Brief news items

The Bay Area will receive 70% of the Prop 1B money earmarked for Northern California. In total, the MTC will receive nearly $1.3 billion in funds, more than Los Angeles County's almost $1.2 billion. Two projects that didn't make the cut two weeks ago now just got over $160 million in new financing, and they're quite relevant to the Cisco Field even though they aren't within 5 miles of the ballpark. They are:

• Carpool/HOV lane on Southbound I-880 from Hegenberger Rd. in Oakland to Marina Blvd. (San Leandro). This section frequently gets jammed up on weeknights as it loses a lane while going south. Adding a HOV lane should help siphon carpoolers earlier in the commute, giving ballpark goers from Oakland HOV access all the way down the Nimitz.
• Carpool/HOV lanes I-880 between US-101 and CA-237. Only a few years ago, this section was strictly two lanes in each direction. While the addition of a lane in each direction helped reverse commuters (like yours truly), those stuck in the regular commute continued to face much congestion. A HOV lane would help fans coming from San Jose while also acting as a regular fourth lane during non-carpool hours (think weekend games).
  

According to the California Transportation Commission's documentation, neither project would have a bid awarded until late 2011. Add 2-4 years to to build these enhancements and they'd probably miss the opening of the ballpark. When thinking of them in the long term, it can't be viewed as anything but a positive. Neither project will be fully funded by state money alone, but needing to get only a few million as opposed to a few hundred million is a major victory.

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San Jose's Ballpark EIR was certified Wednesday night, setting the stage for SJ to be Wolff's shoulder to cry on if the Pacific Commons site falls apart. Yes it's moot and futile, but you never know what could happen. *cue the conspiracy theorists*

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A Quakes-SJSU-San Jose partnership could result in an announcement within the next two months about a new Spartan Stadium. In the KLIV interview Wolff said he felt good about the response from the university and city. Financing would occur through a plan similar to the ballpark village, except that it would be smaller and not necessarily integrated with the venue.

That's "New A's Ballpark", Lew

I was surprised to find out that in Lew Wolff's KLIV appearance with Dave Holland on Carl Guardino's CEO show, this very site was mentioned. Specifically, Lew talked about how I and many others are eager for the details, perhaps before they're ready to present. Given the recent articles about the Scott Specialty Gases situation, perhaps more patience should be exercised. It doesn't help that I have high-res renderings of Cisco Field rotating every 30 minutes on my computer's desktop background/wallpaper.

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No transcription, but I picked up a few good points from the Q&A:

• Wolff cited an economic study for a stadium in Arlington (TX), and said that the impact of Cisco Field would be greater. Not sure if the comparison is with the Ballpark in Arlington (now Ameriquest Field) or the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium. If it's the ballpark, the comparison is easy because the ballpark woefully failed to deliver on development promises made when it was initially pitched. The new football stadium has a more recent glowing economic study, but around here we tend to view such reports with a suspicious eye.
• The soon-to-be-released A's economic study will claim that through direct and indirect means, the project will bring 7,000 new jobs to Fremont.
  
• For the first time, Wolff mentioned a bus system serving as the shuttle to BART. No specifics.
  
• Wolff inferred that the buildings outside the ballpark that have a view of the field would be leased or owned by third parties, but the A's would have control over the rooftops.
• Ads would be largely digital and targeted. For instance, alcohol ads would stop showing when beer sales stopped in the 7th inning.
• Cisco VP/Treasurer Dave Holland talked about how baseball is moving from a broadcasting model to a more user-driven experience.
  

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On a side note, Carl Guardino was named to the California Transportation Commission, the state body charged with doling out $4.5 billion in Prop 1B funds. Guardino is a major proponent of BART-to-Silicon Valley. It's a very big deal.