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.

---

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.

Mayor Reed Press Conference Tuesday @ 1 pm

For those who are wondering where all the South Bay community leaders are regarding the San Jose ballpark project, they'll be at City Hall tomorrow at 1 p.m. for Mayor Chuck Reed's press conference. Reed will undoubtedly tout the revenue and growth potential cited by the week-old economic impact report. Here's the press release:

Mayor Reed to Discuss Economic Benefits of a Proposed Major League Ballpark in San Jose

Event:
This Tuesday, Mayor Reed will host a press conference to discuss the findings of an Economic Impact Analysis for a Proposed Major League Ballpark, and highlight the estimated General Fund tax revenue and job generation benefits that the City and other local agencies stand to gain. Key baseball supporters, business leaders and labor representatives will be available for interviews. Following the press conference, the San Jose City Council is expected to accept the economic impact report at the Council Meeting.

When:
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
1:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m.

Where:
San Jose City Hall, Wing Room 120
200 E. Santa Clara Street, San Jose, CA 95113

Who:
Mayor Chuck Reed
Former Mayor Susan Hammer, Pro Baseball San Jose
Larry Stone, Santa Clara County Assessor
Pat Dando, President & CEO, San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce
Neil Struthers, Chief Executive Officer, Santa Clara & San Benito Counties Building Trades Council
Carl Guardino, President & CEO, Silicon Valley Leadership Group
Michael Mulcahy, business leader, Pro Baseball San Jose

Other prominent community leaders and supporters of Major League Baseball will also be in attendance.


Background:
In May, the San Jose City Council unanimously approved Negotiating Principles for a proposed Major League Ballpark in downtown San Jose. These included requirements that construction and operation of a stadium be privately financed, and that the proposed project have a positive impact on the City’s General Fund. An Economic Impact Report released earlier this month found that the proposed ballpark could annually generate $1.5 million for the City of San Jose, $1.5 million for the San Jose Redevelopment Agency, as well as $2 million for Santa Clara County and other local agencies. The report also estimated that a stadium would generate 350 new construction jobs (annually for three years) and 980 net new jobs as well.


Interviews:
Mayor Reed, event speakers and other civic leaders will be available for one-on-one interviews immediately following the event.

I think I'll be scheduling a late lunch to cover the event myself.

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.

The old San Jose Ballpark EIR

In case you're interested in seeing what a completed ballpark environmental impact report looks like, I've made the 2006 San Jose Ballpark EIR available online. It took some work to find and organize it.

The Draft EIR was distributed in numerous pieces. The first file contains the body of the document. The appendices are in a separate file, as is the Economic Impact Report. I'm still looking for the figures document, which contains various graphical detail. I've listed links for the Final EIR (scanned, not searchable), which is essentially the Draft EIR with some changes and additional technical information. All of the files are PDF, compressed in .ZIP format.

Draft EIR

• Draft EIR
• Appendices
• Economic Impact Report

Final EIR (most of it scanned, not searchable)

• EIR (essentially the Draft EIR)
  
• First Amendment
• General Correspondence
• Technical Reports
• Recirculated Cultural Resources document
  
• Approval (Certification)
  

Should you choose to download most of this stuff you'll be treated to hundreds of pages of at times mindnumbing detail.

It's important to note that this EIR only covered a ballpark and an associated parking garage nearby. No ancillary development was considered, and the ballpark concept was a fairly generic, 45,000-seat footprint. The Cisco Field concept is at least 10,000 seats smaller. While the EIR was certified almost two years ago, it faced staunch NIMBY opposition from the surrounding area. Appendix B in the Draft EIR has 20 pages of generally negative comments about the concept - and that doesn't include all of the comments taken during the several public outreach sessions. For a chronology of the EIR process, check out this link. From the Notice of Preparation to Certification, the process was 15 months long.

Tomorrow I'll give my current take on San Jose.

Reading between the lines, Part II - Ballpark begets Pottery Barn

It's amazing what happens when you're not trying to sell the moon. While some of the projections in the economic impact report fall into the half-full (vs. half-empty) classification, many of the assumptions are well grounded and make a good foundation for the case the report lays out.

Since neither the city or county are being asked to cough up a large tax-free bond, there's little need to make the outlandish claims normally foisted upon the public with other stadium initiatives. Here are a couple of examples:

• Player salaries are largely exempt from claims about economic impact. It is assumed that each player on the A's 25-man roster will spend only $100,000 of their salaries in the area. The rest will go towards homes out of the area and other investments.
  
• Projected attendance is only 2,150,000 per year through the turnstiles on an averaged annual basis. That's less than 27,000 per game. By not projecting constant sellouts through the first x years, there's little risk of not delivering on those projections. Of course, since those projections don't translate into revenue for the city/county, it doesn't really matter that much.
• Additional non-A's game events such as concerts and facility rentals are not discussed at all. As a result there's no inflation of benefits.
  

There's a rule-of-thumb when writing reports like this: Throw out a bunch of numbers, the biggest ones will stick. This tends to obfuscate the true impact of such a project, which should really be measured in hard tax dollars. The problem is that with most stadium projects, we know where the money goes - to the team. It disappears down a rabbit hole and into millionaires' bank accounts. The task at hand, then, is to wade through the hype and get to those numbers.

Let's start with what the report calls "Gross Sales at the New Ballpark." This covers non-ticket stadium revenue (concessions, merchandise, parking). The projected figure is $32 million per season, or $14.32 per attendee. As mentioned previously, this revenue stays with the team, so neither the city nor county sees any direct benefit. They get the satisfaction of knowing that the money is being spent within city and county limits, but little else.

The Ballpark Village Retail projections are where it gets more interesting and compelling. The Fremont (Tri-Cities) area is ripe for high-end retail along the lines of Santana Row. Pacific Commons is 15 miles from Valley Fair/Santana Row and 16 miles from Stoneridge Mall, putting it in a unique position. The combined population of Fremont, Newark, Union City, and Milpitas approaches 400,000 and is steadily gaining affluence.

Final retail space after build out will be 550,000 square feet. The mix of retailers should produce $400 per square foot of annual sales (less than I had estimated earlier), resulting in $220 million in gross sales. Of that figure, 75% of sales, or $165 million, is expected to be new to Fremont due to many of the fact that many of those retailers don't have a location in or near Fremont. If 90% of those sales were taxable, sales tax revenue would equal at least $1.4 million per year.

Is that projection realistic? Moreover, does this area need yet another Pottery Barn? The answer to the latter is subjective, but for the former, probably yes. Consider this map:

Yes, that's a map of Pottery Barn locations in the Bay Area. The red star indicates the location of ZIP code 94538, home to Pacific Commons. Notice the gap between #1 and #3? The closest location is arguably a $4 toll away, in Palo Alto.

Now look at these tables. The first has big box (warehouse) stores such as Costco. Wal-Mart and Fry's are somewhat anomalous due to political or private concerns, but the other retailers have extremely good coverage all over the Bay Area.

We certainly don't need another Target. But when we switch to high-end retailers, everything changes.

Notice that the further you move to the right on the table, the further you get from Fremont. There's a huge gap in the area. It's one that won't get filled on its own due to market inertia. It would take a big ticket item like a ballpark and an influx of high-income residents (via the ballpark village) to make it attractive for those retailers to set up shop.

The argument should be made that without the ballpark as an anchor, these retailers wouldn't come to the area. In fact, the report argues that without the ballpark village, the land wouldn't be developed at all for at least a decade. Conversely, the area's not such a slam dunk that it sells itself based on location alone.

Hotel taxes would bring in up to $300,000 per year. Another $400,000 would come from property transfer tax for transactions within the project area. Still other miscellaneous local tax revenue sources make up the balance. Add to that the $1 million that the A's will pay towards city services and you get to approximately $3.6 million per year.

Assuming that the $1 million is a wash because it'll be used to pay for game-related city services, is the rest enough to make it worthwhile? Fremont is one of the safest cities in America, so how much additional police and fire protection will be required to keep up that standard with the ballpark village in place? In other words, does that remaining $2.6 million per year make the whole exercise worthwhile? That's for Fremont's leaders to decide.

...but wait, there's more! Later today or tomorrow I'll cover the ever mysterious TIF funds and those dreaded and confusing multipliers.

SJ Economic Impact Report

I'll get into the nitty gritty later tonight. For now I'll make a few observations on the new Economic Impact Report:

1. The firm used for this version, Conventions Sports & Leisure, is the same one used by the City of Santa Clara for their 49ers stadium study. I will be looking carefully for unrealistic projections.

2. Cost of the 32,000-seat ballpark is projected to be $461 million in 2009 dollars, $489 million in 2011 dollars. Ballpark would open in 2014.

3. The City's projected impact is ~$1.5 million in additional general fund revenue, net of increased city service costs ($45k). The A's would pay for all gameday police, emergency and traffic expenses.

4. Projected 2.1 million in attendance plus 3 non-baseball events.

5. 50% of attendees would not be from
San Jose and would be coming in solely for an A's game.

6. Jobs - 350 during construction period, 980 net new jobs including 138 ballpark-specific jobs. I'll get into why I'm skeptical about this later.

7. There are hints about what kind of deal could be struck within the numbers. Think property taxes.

8. An alternative development scenario projects just over 1 million new s.f. In office space. It could produce nearly 3x the number of post-construction jobs but yield $300k less tax revenue annually. The difference here is that completion of the construction would occur some 20 years after a ballpark due to commercial market conditions.

9. Yes, there is a section devoted to indirect impacts, which I will largely ignore.

10. This is the first official analysis from the City which refers to the A's by name (88 instances).

Can San Jose meet the demand?

Tonight's contribution comes from frequent commenter gojohn, who in a previous thread had some thoughts on the future makeup of a San Jose A's fanbase. I told him that it looked like he needed some room to flesh out the concept, so I gave him this post to do it. I'll add my own thoughts at the end of the post.

---

Thanks to Marine Layer for allowing me to do this guest post. Half of it was written while sporting my 1929 A’s hat at the game today. I didn’t want to be “that guy” with a laptop at the game, but I figured I was exempt since I was writing about the A’s. I was stuck in the Stomper Fun Zone most of the game anyway.

When I was looking over the San Jose Economic Impact Report the table below stood out to me. 

I was a bit surprised to see it estimated that 50% of the ballpark attendees would be coming from San Jose. So, I attempted to come up with my own number based upon the only data that I know of that is publically available. That would be the table below from the Fremont Economic Impact Report.

This table breaks down the advance ticket sales by county for the 2005 Oakland Athletics season. Ticket sales per county should vary mainly based on the population of that county and its distance from the Oakland Coliseum. Below is scatter plot of the % county population attending games by the distance of each county from the ballpark (I assumed only one game a person. Obviously not right, but I made that assumption for all counties so it shouldn’t affect the slope of the line).

Allow me to make a few observations from this graph before moving forward. First, Napa County loves the A’s. Those fans take the long haul to the park in numbers that far exceed expectations. If the A’s move south, Napa County might be the biggest losers. Second, Alameda County attendance is slightly above expected, but Santa Clara County is a bit lagging. Doesn’t really fit with the notion that the South Bay is deserving of a new ballpark more than Alameda County because the former will support the team more. Maybe they’re better Giants fans? Obviously, there are many issues unrelated to attendance alone that factor into the decision to move the team South, and the purpose of this post isn’t to reignite the Oakland vs. San Jose debate. I’m just sayin’, if you are going to talk the talk…

To estimate how the placement of the ballpark in San Jose might affect the relative attendance values from surrounding counties, I took the trendline formula from the scatter plot above and plugged in the distance of the counties from Diridon (I’m not a statistician, but I believe this is regression analysis). Using that formula, a Diridon ballpark would result in 433K less fans per year than the Coliseum, demonstrating that having a centrally located ballpark does have a significant positive affect on attendance. Keep in mind, this assumes no increase in fan interest from the 2005 values, it is only taking the ballpark from one location and putting it in another. I had to increase the y-intercept value (aka: the fan interest index) 34% to get an attendance value equal to the Coliseum numbers. In other words, a San Jose ballpark may indeed generate more interest than an Oakland one, but the interest needs to be ~34% higher to make up for the asymmetrical location of the ballpark in the Bay Area.

The graph below shows the percentage each county would be expected to contribute to Diridon ballpark attendance. To the right of the pie graph is a bar graph that breaks down each individual city in Santa Clara County.

The 18.6% value from “other California or out of state” is taken directly from the 2005 values in Oakland. Alameda County attendees would be expected to drop by ~160K fans, while Santa Clara county would be up 570K. Of note is San Jose, which I project to consist of only about a quarter of all ballpark attendees (470K fans/year). My number is half of the estimate stated in the San Jose economic report. I can’t quite reconcile how the two values are so far off. Perhaps the report relied more on figures from Sharks games and other MLB venues. Maybe they don’t think the relationship between attendance and distance from the ballpark is linear. It’s even possible they fudged a bit. It’s tough to say without knowing their method and having access to the numbers they do. I can only say my numbers seem reasonable and that’s good enough for me.

I would think that my numbers are much more encouraging to a future ballpark in San Jose than those outlined in the report. One million fans from San Jose may be difficult to achieve. However, since I think it is unlikely the report would want to come up with estimates that would suggest a ballpark is not feasible in San Jose, I can only assume they believe 1 million fans from San Jose is reasonable. Perhaps it would be driven by a huge influx of local corporate ticket sales. If 1 million fans truly end up coming from San Jose alone, based on my estimates, the Diridon ballpark is going to be a huge success. I realize I’m beating a dead horse here, but if I’m right I hope the demand for tickets will justify adding more seats to the venue sooner rather than later.

---

Ed.: My only criticism is of gojohn's acceptance of the 2005 distribution as a transferable system. The layout and population distribution of the Bay Area makes that difficult, just as it's hard for a newcomer to the area to understand our microclimates. A truly thorough analysis (which to his credit gojohn clearly says he is not doing) would go into at least city-based figures and at best ZIP code level granularity. To understand this complexity, I went to the USGS to get a recent Bay Area population density map (PDF map from 2000). I then overlaid 20-mile radius circles around the three locales: AT&T Park (orange), the Coliseum (yellow), and Diridon South (blue). Click on the map for a larger (1.5 MB) version.

Both the orange and yellow circles represent approximately 4 million residents. Within the blue circle there are 2 million residents. The overlap of the orange and yellow circles makes product centrally located within the Bay Area, yet also inefficient in its availability. Of the blue circle's 2 million residents, half are in San Jose. That's probably where the 50% comes from. That doesn't necessarily mean 50% of game attendees will naturally come from San Jose. I expect a lower percentage due to higher ticket prices and the greater affluence of nearby communities and likely higher corporate patronage, much of which is not in San Jose proper.

Note: I neglected to mention where the 20-mile radius came from. I had previously seen a presentation showing that the vast majority of ticket buyers for a future ballpark will come from within a 18-20 mile radius. The current Coliseum location defies this convention thanks in large part to BART.

Cutting through the B.S.

The Merc's Tracy Seipel has a new article featuring quotes from economists questioning some of the projections in the San Jose Economic Impact Report. Here's one of the better takeaways from the article:

But experts who study the economics of ballparks reviewed the numbers for the Mercury News and raised plenty of concerns. Chief among them: The cost for the city land the ballpark would be built upon is significant, they said. With three more parcels to buy, acquiring the land for the stadium over the years could amount to at least $42 million, according to a Mercury News analysis.

"You can't come out saying that this doesn't have a cost if all we're supplying them (the A's) is the land," said Victor Matheson, associate professor of economics at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass. "The land is very valuable real estate."

Rather than be redundant, I'm reposting the "Cutting through the B.S." entry from last week, which covers much of the same ground.

---

First, I'll start off with some context on the report. The media has published several figures that sound good, but further understanding is in order.

• $130 million per year in direct spending in San Jose. This is based on what's called a "stabilized" year, which for the purposes of the report is 2018. This acknowledges that much of the newness of the ballpark will wear off over time, allowing attendance to settle just under 2 million/year (24,300/game). This breaks down to $82.8 million of spending in the ballpark, $40.5 million outside the ballpark, $1.8 million by the various visiting teams, and $5.2 million for non-MLB events. There are some odd ratios used to get to these totals. For instance, the study assumes that 10% of players will live in San Jose, and that 10% will spend 50% of their income in the city. What? The other 90% will live outside San Jose and will spend only 5% of their income in the city. All-in-all, some 5.1 million (7%) will be spent within the city. Another $50 million would come from spending directly related to ballpark and team operations. Compare the $130 million figure to projections for the 49ers stadium, which were $72 million and $160 million for the City and County, respectively. I'm skeptical about these numbers, but CSLI claims they're based on information from MLB teams, other sports franchises, and surveys. There must be some correlation, but the numbers described within the text don't always match up with what's in the tables.
  
• Nearly 1000 jobs will be created outside of construction. Granted, moving team operations from Oakland to San Jose will net dozens, if not hundreds of new jobs. From a greater regional standpoint, it's really just displacement. Moreover, there will be displacement of the low-paying jobs. Many of the Aramark-sourced vendors in Oakland will lose a seasonal baseball gig, while Aramark-sourced vendors in San Jose will gain one. For years many of these vendors have worked multiple venues to help make ends meet, which makes sense since we have the luxury of having six local pro sports teams combining to cover the entire calendar year. And if the 49ers and/or Raiders move to Santa Clara, there will be even more displacement. Many vendors won't be willing to travel 40 miles to work food or janitorial service. So it's great for South Bay workers, terrible for East Bay workers. Not that I needed to explain that in great detail.
  
• Per capita spending. The study separates fans into different groups in order to properly establish their spending patterns. For A's games, in-ballpark spending is projected to be $49 per person per game. That sounds high until you break it down into its components: $30 for a ticket, $15 for food and beverage ($6 nachos + $7 beer + $3 dessert = $16), $3 merchandise (part of more expensive item spread out over multiple visits), $1 parking (3 people per car, 30% of fans using available parking). The Coliseum's 2009 Fan Cost Index is $46.81 per person per game, and that includes a child discount on tickets. Many fans (including myself) go quite cheap by finding free parking, or by bringing in outside food. Still, I pay $13 for a bleacher seat, $7.20 roundtrip from Fremont BART to the Coliseum, $3 in gas, plus $7 for a large sandwich and drink from somewhere else. It adds up.
• That hint. In the afternoon post, I mentioned there was a hint at the deal. In the general fund revenue section is this sentence, "Under the Ballpark Development Scenario, the hard
  construction costs of the stadium are used as a proxy for the assessed value." Assuming there are no appraisal shenanigans like the kind the Giants pulled in SF, the figure points to an assessment of the ballpark only, which means that the land will remain City property while the A's will lease it for the stadium. In other words, it's a repeat of the Giants' land deal.
  

What you, gentle reader, want to know is: Are these realistic numbers? The strange breakdown of player spending and the projections of property tax pass throughs to school districts are specious. Other numbers appear to be realistic, in some cases conservative. The study projects $1.5 million in tax revenue. It's not high, and there's a good reference point in HP Pavilion. Sharks games produce between $1.2 and $2 million per year in taxes with fewer games and less overall attendance (though greater ticket prices). That said, $1.5 million is a drop in the bucket for a city of 1 million people. Claims of making money from the deal are key for Mayor Chuck Reed, as he wants to uphold his fiscal conservative credentials. Given the litany of bad stadium deals listed in the last appendix in the report, it would be a great victory if the project were simply revenue neutral. Not sexy, but a little more realistic.

Media coverage of the economic impact report and reactions:
The money: Wolff connects the dots @ Bloomberg, talks T-rights @ Forbes
The lede @ the Merc and SFGate
The tube: KTVU and KGO stories

Reading between the lines, Part I

It's bad form, but I'm going to start off with a few sidebar items because they're rather interesting. Advance ticket sales account for 80% of all tickets sold. The remaining 20% is walkup sales. Here's a geographical breakdown:

• Oakland accounts for 8.8% of advance ticket sales
• San Francisco accounts for 13% of advance ticket sales
• Fremont's share is 2.3%, Santa Clara County is at 10.5%
• Alameda County in total buys 27.3% of advance tickets
• Contra Costa County buys 20.7%
• 10.4% comes from outside the nine-county Bay Area
• 8.2% comes from outside California

The San Francisco number has to take into account certain factors such as Giants fans' impact on attendance during the 3-game set played at the Coliseum every year (rough estimate: 1.5-2% of ticket sales). One has to wonder what negative impact will come with the lack of BART access, especially for SF residents who have no other public transit alternative.

That said, there's no better representation of how regional the team is than the table the above information comes from on page III-10.

Page III-6 has a graph showing historical attendance. Surprisingly, they use both paid attendance and turnstile attendance figures in the comparison. Since the start of the A's run of success in 2000, actual (turnstile) attendance has run only 80% of paid attendance. Since sellouts are sellouts, that can only mean that those Monday/Tuesday night April series openers draw even worse than you'd think (or they'd announce). The upshot is that concessions sales are behind the curve.

Now onto housing. Start saving your pennies, prospective buyers. A townhouse will run on average $675,000 at the Ballpark Village. Some units will obviously be cheaper and others much more expensive, but they put the number out there. Construction on each new residential unit is estimated at $380,000. Other important figures:

• The 600 first units would be available in 2011, in line with the opening of the ballpark.
• 600 units would be sold each year through 2014; 500 would be sold in 2015 to finish the rollout
• The residential portion would bring in 8,787 new residents to Fremont

This is the point where the questions come up. The first is about tax increment financing. From Page VI-4:

The projections in Table VI-3 assume that the County and other affected agencies will agree to raise the cap for this project area. If the cap is not raised, less future money will flow into the Redevelopment Agency, and somewhat more will flow into the City’s General Fund...

The assumption here is that the Redevelopment Zone would remain for some time. I have to correct myself on this. In the past I noted that the zone's existing debt would be retired in 2014. However, the zone itself would expire on November 22, 2023, long after the ballpark village has been built. The city's redevelopment arm would accrue over $58 million in property tax increment just through 2016, possibly $150 million through the end of the zone's life. What would happen to that money?

The area redevelopment plan shows a transit hub as a requirement. That's pretty much a given with this project. How expansive would the transit hub be? It's one thing to have a rail platform, some bus stalls and a parking lot. Would they also consider additional road or rail infrastructure?


Speaking of infrastructure, something needs to be done to make sure new kids in the area have access to schools. The report touts the infusion of $10 million into FUSD's coffers. But it also says this:

New enrollment will be directed to existing school facilities as efficiently as possible to balance the student population with capacity.

The area is projected to have 684 new K-12 students. The statement above implies that all of these new students would have to be bussed or driven to existing schools on the other side of 880. Two schools in that area have around 500 students, so the impact could be enormous. We're talking about adding a new neighborhood's worth of students without a new school. That makes very little sense.

Schools are not cheap. Don Callejon School, which was built as part of the Rivermark development in Santa Clara, cost $26 million to construct. Even then, I don't think price is so much the issue as available land is. If the ballpark village core takes up 25 acres and housing takes up 120, that leaves precious little land for parking, required park facilities, or a school. Will someone pony up for a school in the project area?

Next, do a search for the term "affordable housing" in the report and you'll get no results. There's no reference to Fremont's requirement that all new residential construction have 15% of the project be available at affordable housing cost. There's also no reference to various incentives that the city gives to developers to encourage them to build affordable housing.

This is the one issue I can see becoming a real sticking point. How would the A's and their partner developers tackle this? It's great that Fremont offers a density bonus, but the lack of information about how the requirement would be fulfilled is troubling. It's something that frequently holds up other housing developments, since it affects developer profits.

In the tabulation of tax increment revenue, it is mentioned that there's a mandatory set aside of around 20% of the revenue for low and moderate income housing. Is that money under consideration to fulfill the requirement? If so that's quite an endaround.

The next post will cover direct and indirect economic impact.

Planning transit around a ballpark, Part III

Lew Wolff revealed on Forum with Michael Krasny that the development filing, due in 10 days, will be accompanied by 150 pages of documentation. Keep in mind that this "tome" won't be environmental impact report. It will likely include the much-anticipated traffic and transportation study. It might also contain an amended economic impact report to reflect changes in the development. The actual EIR will come after several months of study and review, first in draft form, then in final form for certification.

The traffic and transportation study will probably contain details about the shuttles that will take fans from either the current Fremont BART station or a future Warm Springs (South Fremont) BART station to Cisco Field. In an effort to provide a preview of this, this post speculates a bit on what the shuttles could look like.

The red, green, and blue lines represent potential routes from the existing Fremont BART station. The dotted yellow line shows routes from Warm Springs BART. The pink dotted line represents routes from the future Capitol Corridor/ACE station as well as the possible remote parking lot. At first glance it doesn't appear that the nearby lots (blue and yellow "P"), which are less than 1/2 mile from the ballpark, would have shuttle service.

This is where it gets tricky. Let's go with Keith Wolff's estimate that 5,000 people would either take transit or walk from the nearby village. How many would come from the village itself? 1,000? 2,000? I seriously doubt that more than 1,000 residents would go to the ballpark. The number of workers from the nearby area that could walk to the ballpark might number in the hundreds at best. So let's assume that 4,000 would come from transit.

Since there would be no direct BART or rail service to the ballpark, all transit riders would be coming via some kind of bus, big or small. So the question is, how many buses will it take? Going from what's in AC Transit's fleet, here's what they'll need:

• 40 articulated (60' long) buses: 63 seated, 40 standees -or-
  
• 60 regular (40') buses: 40 seated, 30 standees -or-
  
• 200 mini or shuttle buses: 20 seated, 0 standees
  

There a couple more considerations to take into account. Would these shuttles provide "express" service between the station and the ballpark, or would there be stops in between? I can't see Fremont officials signing off on something that appreciably clogs their streets without providing at least some service to its own residents. And if the service included stops in between, what about service to parts of Fremont not on the routes? Or service to Newark or Union City? An express bus might take 20 minutes in favorable traffic. In bad traffic or with a bunch of stops, it could take 10-15 minutes more.

This is where our oft-neglected friend the train comes in. While Capitol Corridor won't bring fans the last mile (literally), CC trains can bridge much of the 5 mile gap. They can also overcome some major challenges. A train shuttle running from the Union City Intermodal Station would reduce the need for those 40-100 bus shuttles from Fremont BART. It would also service Union City and Fremont by default, plus a new station along the Newark section of the route could service Newark residents. Most importantly, the remaining shuttle traffic would be largely confined to the Pacific Commons area (the pink dotted line), with few shuttles crossing 880. Shorter shuttle routes translate greater efficiency and lower operating costs. The trip from Union City to Pacific Commons could run around 15 minutes - not as good as BART but better than a bus. Capitol Corridor officials had indicated in the past that they aren't set up to run a shuttle like this, but some creative scheduling can allow this service to be folded into their expanding schedule. Additional trains between Fremont and San Jose will soon be feasible with the completion of several already underway track improvement projects.

Now, on to the dotted yellow line. A study was undertaken in 2001 to determine ways to better move traffic between 880 and 680 during the commute hours. Two identified methods would immediately impact fans traveling between the proposed Warm Springs BART station and Pacific Commons.

Alternative A1 involves the widening of Auto Mall Parkway to 6 lanes east of 880. That alone should make things easier, but two other measures should be taken to mitigate traffic. First, it appears that the parking area located closest to Cisco Field will be largely VIP parking. That alone will reduce the number of cars making left turns from Auto Mall to Christy St. Rules can be established that limit left turns there to VIP parking passes and shuttle buses. Second, since Joe Fan won't get to park that close to the park, he may be forced to use the lot across Auto Mall from Pacific Commons (the uppermost "P" above). It would behoove the A's to build a pedestrian overpass over Auto Mall Parkway. A full lot there would equate to over 5,000 fans walking from the lot. Not putting in an overpass would be borderline irresponsible, as Auto Mall Parkway is 9 lanes wide in this area and only one side has a usable crosswalk. The best thing to do would be to build the overpass and stick some flexible electronic signage on it. The signage can direct traffic on event days. It can also show advertising on other days/hours.

Alternative B1 adds HOV lanes on Fremont Blvd and Grimmer Blvd between 880 and 680. If implemented, it would allow a natural route (the longer southerly dotted line) with built-in bus/carpool lanes.

I'm certain that with the direct discussions the A's have had with all of the area transit agencies, they can come up with more creative methods of serving the A's fanbase. The solutions described above are but a handful that can help bring fans to Cisco Field without huge capital expenditures while leveraging without taxing existing infrastructure.

NY Times: Impact of a Stadium article

For those that want a non-propagandistic view of the economic impact of sports venues, take a look at Robin Pogrebin's May 7th article from the Arts & Design section of the NY Times. Several individuals from both sides of the divide were interviewed, including Jay Cross, who headed the Air Canada Centre and American Airlines Arena projects. He is currently working on the mammoth Jets stadium project on the West Side of Manhattan. Some interesting (and relatively refreshing) quotes from Cross:

Cross... cautioned that a stadium could not shoulder the entire burden of reviving a neighborhood. "One building can't do it on its own," he said.

-and-

The stadium's impact, he added, would take time to determine.

"You've got to give it 20 years," he said. "You've got to be patient. They can help neighborhoods," he said of stadiums, "but they're not instant panaceas. They will neither repel housing or attract it. There still needs to be a bona fide reason to build housing or commercial space as part of a well-thought-through package, because it's largely market driven."

"Times Square had all the good will to clean it up," he continued. "But it needed developers to make commitments."

Keep in mind that the Jets stadium is a multi-use facility which will also function as an extension of the Javits Convention Center, as well as a centerpiece should New York win the 2012 Olympics. Without those, the stadium would have only 8-10 automatically scheduled dates per year in the form of football games. A ballpark would schedule over 10 times that number - 81 games or more. However, even that expanded schedule has holes: 3 months of games spread out over a 6 month span, and what happens during the offseason? Without some guarantee of traffic during that down period in the fall and winter, developers will be hesitant to make commitments.

FAQ/Talking Points

While everyone's focused on the economic impact report (and rightly so), the City of San Jose managed to slip in one other document under the radar. This one's a Frequently Asked Questions (PDF) document, which seems to be timed specifically to provide ballpark proponents two new weapons for their arsenal. You can download the document from the provided link, or simply read on for the whole shebang.

Potential Ballpark
Frequently Asked Questions
1. How will the City of San Jose and the South Bay benefit economically from having a ballpark?
People throughout San Jose will benefit from the $2.9 billion in economic output from the Ballpark.
Employees will benefit from thousands of new job opportunities created by the construction and operation of the Ballpark.
Residents will benefit from City services supported by the additional $1.5 million a year in General Fund revenues from the Ballpark.
Local business will benefit form the $130 million annual economic output driven by spending from new visitors to downtown, and the spending of the team itself for their business operations and service providers for the operation of the ballpark itself.
The entire local economy will benefit from the stimulus of new spending and investment during a time of global economic downturn.
2. How many new jobs will the project create?
The Ballpark would generate almost 1,000 new jobs a year, once in operation, on top of some 350 new construction jobs in San Jose for each of three years. These jobs include full, part time, and seasonal positions.
3. Who is paying for the new ballpark? How much will the ballpark cost the public?
The Major League Baseball team to be responsible for the cost of constructing and operating the ballpark facility.
4. Is there a plan to deal with the increase traffic and noise?
The Mayor and City Council have directed the initiation of a community engagement process and the formation of a Good Neighbor Committee for the Diridon Station Area (the area around the ballpark site). The purpose of this committee is to provide a forum to work collaboratively in addressing the issues and opportunities that arise from proposed projects in the Diridon Area, including a Major League Baseball ballpark.
5. Why was the Diridon site chosen as a potential ballpark site? Why not another (existing) site?
The site was chosen because it is the only identified site in downtown San Jose that is large enough for a Major League Baseball facility that is readily accessible by freeways and major public transportation facilities including Caltrain, VTA bus and light rail.
Access to the project will be further enhanced with the planned BART and High Speed Rail connections at Diridon Station. With the addition of BART and High Speed Rail to Diridon Station the site represents one of the best development sites in the entire Bay Area.
6. What is the timeline for the project?
There are many milestones to accomplished for a project like the baseball stadium to constructed and opened. The first step is for Major League Baseball to come to a conclusion on territorial rights. Pending a favorable conclusion, a vote by the citizens of San Jose will be necessary. It is anticipated that this will be necessary. It is anticipated that this will occur in 2010. If all goes well, the earliest a ballpark would open is Spring 2014.

Opening Day pushed back to at least 2012

A new article by the Argus' Matthew Artz confirms a circulating rumor: the environmental impact review process will go the whole nine yards, pushing its completion until the end of the year. Nothing can proceed until the study is completed, reviewed, and voted upon. Tack on the normal construction time, and it makes 2011 unlikely. The A's were hoping that portions of the previous Pacific Commons study could be used, but the presence of the old document makes the review more complicated, requiring a comparison of projected changes to actual changes.

Those of you looking for a political angle may look at the study's availability after the November general election, when incumbent Bob Wasserman will face off against four-time former mayor Gus Morrison and councilman Steve Cho. Without even a draft, there isn't much substance to debate. That's not to say that Morrison won't feature the anti-ballpark stance prominently, it's just that he won't have any specifics to point to unless he wants to put together his own independent study. Meanwhile, proponents will have the Economic Impact study from last year as ammunition, which I covered in several posts last spring.

A simple economic angle also can't be dismissed. By pushing the opening back a year, investors may be hoping that they'll be an additional year removed from the recession and the housing market drop.

SJ Ballpark Study Session (3/1)

While I was travelling a few weeks ago, I completely missed out on a ballpark study session given for the San Jose City Council on March 1. Previously it was reported at this session that the EIR commenting period would have to be moved out a couple of weeks, but there was more to the session than that. Consultant HOK+Sport was on hand to present the details of their study. Even though the minutes were short, the session provided clarification on a few matters of debate. Excerpted from the Q&A discussion:

8. So we finish the EIR in June, what are possible next steps? Do we build a stadium for the Oakland A’ (sic) and they will come?
No, a development agreement with the A’s would be necessary. The San Francisco Giants territory would have to be resolved. Any team agreement would have to be approved by the major league team owners and the Commissioner of Baseball.
9. Why do we need to go to the voters? What percentage of the vote do we need to move forward?
The Municipal Code provides that the City may use tax dollars to participate in the building of any sports facility with a seating capacity of greater 5,000 only after obtaining approval of the majority of voters. If, however, the proposed source of the public funds is a special tax, a two thirds vote would be required for the tax.
10. OK, so you need a franchise and a developer. What might they bring to the negotiation table?
There is a broad range of possibilities under a development agreement. A developer could add a range of possibilities including development of adjacent properties (assuming they have site control) including residential, commercial and hotel development. They could also bring financing in the form of equity or debt to the project.

There are a total three files to check out: the agenda (posted prior to the session), a study update (also posted prior to the session), and the aforementioned Q&A notes. You can also view the session on the city's website. Take a look at list of archived meetings, then find the one titled "SJRA Ballpark Study Session." Considering the 9 a.m. timing of the session, it wasn't surprising to see the tiny smattering of attendees aside from the city council and presenters.

Some interesting nuggets culled from the session:

• Excavating the site to have a below-grade field is considered the main option in order to reduce height.
  
• The PG&E substation may not have to be moved, but if it isn't the ballpark design would be constrained. One option under consideration pushes the ballpark towards the northeast corner of the site and preserves the substation.
  
• Council member Ken Yeager asked for an example of a similar ballpark/existing neighborhood development. HOK couldn't cite a recent development that closely resembled the Diridon/Arena/Delmas Park situation. Camden Yards was the only one with a neighborhood close by.
• Council member Chuck Reed asked for a clarification on the legality of the pursuit of a ballpark. City attorney Rick Doyle addressed this previously in a memo, which he paraphrased during the session by saying that the money spent on the preliminary study and EIR process is required to get to the point of being able to present something to the voters. Reed expressed concern about the lack of a financing plan and asked "somebody, and it's not gonna be someone at this dais" to scope out the scheme. He then brought up the Baseball San Jose group and found County Assessor Larry Stone, who is a BBSJ leader, in the audience.
• Council member Forrest Williams asked about territorial rights, since he has received numerous questions from his constituents. Economic Development Director Paul Krutko cited the need for a partnership with a team. Krutko also incorrectly cited the DC-Baltimore situation, which is not the same because the Orioles had TV market rights to DC, not exclusive stadium territorial rights. Mayor Gonzales then pointed out that the Arena was built on spec, which isn't realistic now or in the future regarding a baseball stadium. Williams followed up by saying that he's been echoing many of the same statements, but that the public is looking for something more solid, more substantial. Williams asked about an optimal size, and one of the HOK presenters noted that Coors Field was built too large (50,000) because the public was caught up in getting a team. Once the novelty of having a team and a new ballpark wore off, the Colorado Rockies, mired in a lack of on-field success, has had difficulty selling out the stadium.
• Vice-Mayor Cindy Chavez wanted information on surrounding development and economic impact. Redevelopment head Harry Mavrogenes talked about development in the area between HP Pavilion and the ballpark site. Recently the Planning department submitted design guidelines for this area and other transit-close areas in and near downtown. Diridon/Arena, including Diridon South, is part of this newly expanded downtown area.
  
• Council member Nanci Pyle brought up the concept of soccer as an alternative, a dual-use stadium, or a dual-stadia concept. HOK replied that dual-use stadium would be an option should the substation be moved to the south end of the fire training site.
  
• Council member Dave Cortese brought up the idea of pushing the A's to make a decision. He also promoted a separate socioeconomic study, focused on the impact on the immediate area and surrounding neighborhoods, with research done on other cities who have done similar urban stadium projects. Cortese finished up by posing the issue of financing not as a future bridge to cross when a team comes, but as an issue that needs to be proactively addressed to avoid missing opportunities should they arise. He also called for laying out a detailed, real timeline that the public can view and assess. Mavrogenes replied that the timeline could be produced in the next 30-45 days. I'm looking forward to a non-fluff economic report, if they really have the cajones to commission one.
• Representatives from Ballpark Tax Watchdogs, the Shasta/Hanchett Park Neighborhood Association (west of site) and the Burbank/Del Monte Neighborhood Advisory Committee (southwest of site) spoke during the public comment period. Word of advice to Ballpark Tax Watchdogs: if you're going to arm yourself with information, don't just refer to a book that's almost a decade old, especially when the plea's bound to fall on deaf ears (namely the Mayor's). Instead, check out the Field of Schemes website or an article published today in the Boston Globe. They're a little more up-to-date. S/HNPA and BDMNAC expressed their disgust over the lack of disclosure regarding the ballpark process and plans. Their outrage appears to have brought results, since the EIR commenting period was extended to April 20 and four public outreach meetings were scheduled shortly thereafter.
  

I was surprised at the lack of certainty within the city council. It wasn't just about the EIR - there was no real consensus on how San Jose should proceed. Cortese was right in calling the situation a Catch-22. It made the most sense to push the process out not just to accommodate a more comprehensive review of the EIR, but to allow the numerous variables in the situation to settle. If the A's really do move to San Jose, it will be a result of equal parts hard work and serendipity.

P.S. Read that Boston Globe article (registration required) I cited earlier if you get the chance. It's the most well-balanced treatment of the subject matter I've seen, perhaps, ever.

May Day = FAQ Day

It's only occurred to me recently that I'd do well to have a Frequently Asked Questions file here, considering that this site is now three years (!) old. So without further ado, here's the very unofficial New A's Ballpark FAQ:

Overview
1. What is the current state of the ballpark project?
The project is currently undergoing environmental review, which started in December 2007. The process is expected to take 12-18 months. It was thought that the period could be shortened due to portions of a previous EIR (environmental impact report) being available, but that is no longer the case.
When initially conceived, the ballpark was projected to open in 2010. That has slipped twice, with the projected opening in 2012 or later.
2. What is the project called?
The ballpark will be named Cisco Field, after the naming rights sponsor, Cisco Systems. The residential and retail portions of the development are as yet unnamed and are referred to generically as the “baseball village.”
3. What happens after the EIR is completed?
A draft version will be distributed to Fremont’s city council and the public, upon which there will be an official comment period. Changes may be made during this period. A final EIR with public comments will be presented to council for approval/ratification. The council’s vote probably won’t occur before December 2008.
4. Will a public vote be required?
A referendum is not required, nor is it supported by the majority of the current council.
5. How much will the ballpark cost?
Current estimates have construction at $450 million.
6. What’s Fremont paying for the ballpark?
As it stands, nothing. Fremont’s role is to approve land rezoning that the A’s want (industrial-to-residential/commercial) to build 3,000+ homes on land previously owned by Cisco and ProLogis. The increase of property value for the land (225 acres) would mean increased profits from the sales of housing rights. A portion of those profits would be used to pay for the ballpark.
There is some amount of additional infrastructure that needs to be built to support the project: a school, public park(s), possible pedestrian paths, trails, or bridges. It is uncertain what the cost of such facilities will be or who will bear the cost. The cost of building streets, sewers, and running utilities is typically borne by the developer.
Cisco also has a 30-year, $120 million naming rights and technology deal with the A’s for Cisco Field.
7. How big will the ballpark be?
32-35,000 seats, not including standing room. The design calls for only two seating decks, with the press box on top of the second deck, a la PNC Park.
8. What features does the ballpark have?
The ballpark is expected to have all of the modern amenities that other new stadia and arenas have, including luxury suites, club seats, separate concourses, and a large variety of food options. One of the claims made by the A’s is that Cisco Field will be the most intimate ballpark in MLB, which stands to reason because it is so small.
The video/scoreboard in centerfield will be two-sided, which will provide views of the action from a small park just beyond centerfield.
The original project announcement mentioned a baseball museum of some sort, but this hasn’t been mentioned since.
The ballpark’s spec contains 40 luxury suites and 40 mini suites, which four or six-person boxes which are grouped three or so and share a common area behind the seats. Mini suites are being offered as an option for smaller firms or companies who can’t justify leasing a large suite yet want more privacy than a club seating section offers.
9. Who are the architects?
360 Architecture, a Kansas City-based architecture firm that opened an office in San Francisco largely for the Cisco Field project. 360 previously designed several multipurpose indoor arenas. Gensler, a large San Francisco-based firm, is the master planner for the whole development.

Retail/Commercial
10. What is the “baseball village?”
The baseball village is an adjacent, 37-acre lifestyle center with high-end retail, additional restaurants, and 600 condos and lofts, plus additional residential development to the south and west of the ballpark. A movie theater is expected. The list of retailers has not been released, but it is expected to be along similar lines to those located at San Jose’s Santana Row or Palo Alto’s Stanford Shopping Center.
11. How many housing units will be built?
2,900+ units are planned for the residential neighborhood south and west of the ballpark. Most of these units would be townhomes or flats of varying sizes. Expected average price of a unit: $675,000. They are expected to be phased in over a ten-year span.
12. Will it be a gated community?
No, but it will be more private than public. The plan’s pocket parks are expected to be owned by the community, with their maintenance paid for by HOA dues.
13. How is the housing crisis affecting the project?
At least one section of land is may have more flexible zoning than the rest. That’s because more commercial uses may be expected there: office space, an extension to the Auto Mall, other shopping centers, etc.
14. What about the school?
The A’s and Fremont Unified School District are hammering out the details of what will likely be a public elementary school within the residential section. This has proven to be necessary as district officials have projected at least 600 students. To accommodate growth, FUSD is looking for a school that can handle up to 1,000 students with future expansion. The A’s have provided their vision: a compact, multi-level urban school similar to Horace Mann School, located in downtown San Jose.

Transportation/Public Transit
15. Will BART run to the ballpark as it does to the Coliseum?
No. The closest current station is the Fremont station, which is the southern terminus of the system. It is approximately 5 miles from the ballpark site. There is a planned station, Warm Springs, near the NUMMI plant, approximately 1.25 miles east of the ballpark site. Buses or shuttles would have to run from either station to the ballpark.
16. What is the Warm Springs BART extension?
It is a 5.4-mile extension that would run south from the Fremont station to Warm Springs. It was initially part of the BART-to-Santa Clara County extension, but was decoupled due for funding and political reasons. The Warm Springs extension is not expected to be built unless the BART-to-Santa Clara County extension is also built. The latter extension faces a funding shortfall at the moment, and it is not clear how that will be made up.
17. Will other rail options be available?
Amtrak and ACE currently run on the Union Pacific line approximately 1.25 miles west of the ballpark site. There is no current station there, but a station was previously planned and would likely be built should the ballpark project move forward. A tram-style shuttle would bring train riders and fans who park in the planned adjacent parking lot to a drop-off point near the ballpark.
The state’s High Speed Rail project, if approved, would not have Fremont along its initial planned route. A Regional Rail option is possible after the first phase if funding is available. That may allow for a station at Warm Springs, alongside/in place of the planned BART station.
18. Could VTA light rail service the ballpark?
Such a line or extension is not in VTA’s plans.
19. Could a private rail solution be built between Warm Springs BART and the ballpark site?
Cost for such a solution would be at least $100 million not including land acquisition. It’s not likely.

Traffic
20. How will existing traffic problems be affected by the ballpark?
On days the ballpark is used, expect up to 10,000 cars in addition to the expected new traffic generated by the retail and residential developments. Those cars would be coming from four different freeway segments and Fremont/Newark surface streets. The most heavily impact segments would be northbound 880 and 680 leading up to the ballpark. Southbound 880 and 680 near the ballpark are not heavily impacted in the weeknight rush hour period. A percentage of fans may also come from the Peninsula over the Dumbarton Bridge. They would be dealing with commute traffic as well.
Considering the wide geographical spread of A’s fans, it’s safe to assume traffic will be spread fairly evenly among the freeway segments, with the less congested southbound 880 getting the most. The traffic/transportation study hasn’t been released, but it’s reasonable to roughly project the following:
880 South: 3,500 cars (may include some Dumbarton traffic)
680 South: 2,500
880 North: 2,500
680 North: 500
Fremont/Newark/Milpitas surface streets: 1,000 (may include some Dumbarton traffic)
Note that these would be peak figures (sellouts), and would drop proportionally with actual attendance at the ballpark.
21. What’s being done to improve 880?
A series of interchange improvements were done in the last decade or so in South Fremont in order to help area manufacturing and warehousing/distribution companies. The last piece of this is the Mission/880 interchange, which is expected to be completed in 2009. Previously, all north and southbound traffic ran into this bottleneck, which only had three lanes in each direction and no carpool lanes. When completed, the interchange will have better separated traffic from 880 to Mission/680, plus a continuous carpool lane down to Milpitas and up through San Leandro. Additionally, traffic from one side of 880 to the other will be better managed by the addition of the new Warren Avenue exit/interchange. Previously, traffic from west of 880 had to mix with commute traffic get to the area east of 880. Lastly, the new Kato Road bridge was built to better route truck traffic bound for NUMMI.
22. That won’t completely alleviate congestion, will it?
No it won’t, but A’s fans traveling in groups will find things easier with the fully extended carpool lanes. The commute nightmare is also largely a one-way affair for those on 880 and 680 north headed towards the Tri-Valley area and exurbs Tracy and Stockton.
23. What about those coming from north of 92?
Work on the biggest bottleneck, the 880/92 interchange, has begun. The project will replace two of the “cloverleaf” sections (92 West-880 South and 92 East-880 North) with flyover ramps. When completed, the interchange’s capacity will be much greater, easing the transition for affected drivers. The interchange is expected to be finished in late 2011. Unfortunately, carpool lanes aren’t expected to be built through Oakland anytime soon as 880 in the area needs seismic retrofitting and widening before carpool lanes can be built.
24. What about surface streets?
Fremont doesn’t have a typical straight grid layout among its north-south corridors. Fremont Blvd and Paseo Padre Pkwy are four-to-six lane drags that are meant to handle city traffic. Auto Mall Pkwy, the main exit near the ballpark site, was widened as part of the 880 interchange projects. It may be widened again if it’s chosen as a carpool alternate route between 880 and 680. Mowry Avenue east of 880 just got a new long lasting asphalt overlay, while Stevenson Boulevard was widened to six lanes. Boyce Road (Fremont)/Cherry Street (Newark), which together are used as an alternate route to/from the Dumbarton (84), is a four-lane road that is meant largely for industrial traffic. Cushing Pkwy, which is Boyce Road south of Auto Mall, was extended over the newly created wetlands preserve as part of the previous development agreement between ProLogis and the government. Cushing runs south to Fremont Blvd and empties into 880 south. Fremont Blvd will be extended from its southern dead end to Warm Springs Blvd and the county line, providing a complete alternate route west of 880.
Mowry, Stevenson, and Fremont will be taxed as a result of shuttles running between Fremont BART and the ballpark site. What is unknown is exactly how many shuttles will be in service pre/post-game.
25. Will there be enough parking?
The A’s project at least 10,000 spaces when the ballpark opens and have pledged to replenish spaces lost due to other construction. This will likely be part of agreement between the team and the city. An additional 10,000 spaces will be constructed for residential and non-baseball commercial use. In addition, the team will encourage fans to come early by offering validation in conjunction with patronage at one of the village’s restaurants, which would mean parking in non-ballpark spots.
In addition, spaces at other nearby office parks may be available at each company’s discretion. It is unknown how much of this parking may become available. The A's, ProLogis, and tenants at retail and office developments are working on a gameday parking plan that preserves each group's respective parking areas.
The Coliseum’s 10,000-space lot handles A’s crowds well, although up to 20% of fans may use BART and several hundred cars park at the Coliseum BART lot during games.

Environmental Concerns
26. What is the wetlands preserve?
As part of the deal to develop over 800 acres of land at Pacific Commons in Fremont, Catellus (once the real estate arm of Southern Pacific) agreed to create a new, 440-acre wetlands preserve at the south end. To foster its growth, a large amount of earth was moved from the preserve section to the commercially developed portions. The moved earth elevated the Auto Mall and nearby business district, while the preserve was intentionally created lower to make it prone to tidal flows. The aforementioned Cushing Pkwy was extended in the form of a causeway to encourage tidal flow.
The preserve appears to be thriving. Migratory and native birds are present, as are rare plants. The tidal flow system is working as intended. As part of the EIR, long term effects of the preserve’s creation will be measured and compared against initially projected effects. From this, a strategy will be created that will help preserve the wetlands. Opponents including the Sierra Club have come out against the Cisco Field project, saying that residential development next to the preserve will irreparably damage the wetlands.
27. I heard the ballpark site is in an area that is prone to future rising sea levels due to global warming/climate change. Is this true?
No. The site is very close to a large estuary within the bay and flood control channels, which could make it prone to flooding if exceedingly heavy rains are combined with rising sea level. However, the predictive model assumes a uniform one meter rise all over the world, when it is more likely that there will be a greater rise at the equator and less rise as one gets further away from the equator. The ballpark is at least 1 mile away from the projected shoreline created by the sea level rise.

Economic Impact
28. How much will the ballpark improve the A’s financial situation?
Depending on how well the ballpark sells out, I’ve conservatively projected they could net an extra $24 million per year in revenue over their current situation at the Coliseum. A recent article on the new Twins’ ballpark has a comment from a Twins official indicating that the team will gain $40 million per year once their stadium opens.
29. Will the financial boost allow the team to compete with the Red Sox or Yankees?
Not by itself. The big market teams have huge amounts of TV and radio revenue along with their revenue-producing ballparks. Unless the A’s were to move towards buying or building their own media properties, there will continue to be a major disparity in revenue between the big market teams and everyone else.
30. Will the project be as beneficial for the city/county as is being claimed by its proponents?
Claims of economic benefit have to be taken with several grains of salt. Let’s be clear. The party that clearly wins in this type of deal is the team. They get a brand new stadium without having to use much of their stadium-generated revenue to pay for it. The city wins because it doesn’t have to raise or levy new taxes in order to get it done, plus it gets a fancy new source of sales tax revenue in the process plus the prestige that comes with having a team call it home. That said it removes a major piece of valuable industrial-zoned land from availability within Silicon Valley. It also adds residents and visitors, which adds strain to an already stretched-thin city.
Jobs will come most immediately in the form of concrete construction and are not permanent. 300 housing starts a year will be a boon for homebuilders. After construction is completed, there will be a number of retail and hospitality jobs, plus stadium operations and concessions. Many of the ballpark-based, non-construction jobs will be low paying. The situation there will be close to zero sum, since those job will simply be moving from Oakland to Fremont. A number of public sector jobs – police, fire – will be added due to the development’s impact on existing city resources.

Miscellaneous
31. Has the team released any documentation about the plan?
They’ve released an economic impact report and the preliminary site plan. A traffic and transportation study will be released as part of the EIR.
32. How long is the A’s lease at McAfee Coliseum?
In 2006, the A’s and the Coliseum Authority converted three option years (2008-10) into a hard lease, adding 2011-13 as option years. The Raiders' lease ends with the 2010 season.
33. What kind(s) of architecture will be featured?
The A's have made frequent reference to older East Coast neighborhoods, especially those with brownstones. They have not released information or pictures about the ballpark's façade, though it is likely the façade will be well-integrated into the neighborhood's overall theme. One particular type of exterior material is not expected to be used: stucco.
34. What will be the team's name after the move?
The A's have held this close to the vest, only saying that the team will be the "_____ Athletics at Fremont" or something to that effect. Principal owner Lew Wolff has hinted that the name in front of "Athletics" may be leveraged for additional investment. Considering the amount of Silicon Valley power and money behind this, it's not a great leap in logic to think the team may eventually be named "Silicon Valley Athletics at Fremont."