Deconstructing the Coliseum, Part II: Stadium Height

In the first installment of this series, I wrote about how the round multipurpose bowl shape was ill-suited for baseball. This time, the discussion topic is height. In this case, I can proudly say that the Coliseum has far more positives than negatives. There's much that works well in the Coliseum when it comes to vertical circulation. The few negative aspects stem from the fact that the venue was built decades before the implementation of ADA rules. Unfortunately, much of what works for the Coliseum can't be used in new ballparks because of specific feature requirements.

You may have noticed that the drawings I posted on Thursday did not show the eastside stands, or "Mt. Davis" as it's typically called. Since the addition was built almost solely for football, it's nearly pointless to use it as part of the discussion. However, Mt. Davis provides a good reference point as it showcases huge differences between how ballparks and football stadia are designed.

Mt. Davis has a lot more in common with Gillette Stadium or Heinz Field than any ballpark, past or present. There are three levels of luxury suites, all having seats safely encased in climate controlled spaces. The plaza or mezzanine level is an exclusive club seating area. Cantilevered decks or overhangs are largely non-existent. The first row of the upper deck on Mt. Davis is roughly the same height as the top row of the upper deck in the original bowl. I've always wondered why the Raiders never placed sherpas at the base of each upper deck tunnel.

One thing rarely discussed about the Coliseum is how easy it is to travel between the three decks in the original seating bowl. Plaza level seats can be reached using either the lower or upper concourses. The upper concourse also serves the View level. Anyone sitting in the upper deck could get to the lower deck in 5 minutes by simply descending a few sets of stairs. Undoubtedly, this encouraged the informal seat trade-up policy so frequently used by upper deck dwellers (and conversely reviled by ownership). This practice was so frowned upon that at least one modern stadium, New Comiskey Park (US Cellular Field), was designed to segregate fans by seating level. Recently, teams and architects have started to see the value in allowing fans to circulate more throughout a concourse - the better to expose fans to concessions. Vertical circulation is still somewhat difficult due to exclusive club and suite levels, though in the concept I'm working on their may be a solution to that dilemma - that's for another time.

The next several graphics show both the Coliseum (in color) and the concept (outlines) in profile. Two perspectives are used: behind the plate, and behind third base.

As shown in the previous set of drawings, the two models are comparable behind the plate. While the concept's seats are closer to the field horizontally, the closure of the View level makes the Coliseum's seats closer overall. Now see what happens at the hot corner:

Once again, the horizontal distance plays a huge factor. The total distance to the top row of the concept's upper deck is 213 feet, while the top row of the Coliseum's plaza level is 221 feet from third base. Worse, the overhang from the luxury suites is so bad that fans at the top of the plaza level have virtually no view of the sky. The following table compares various distances.

The overhang problem isn't limited to Plaza level seats. The back four rows of the Field level are pretty bad too, especially if you're down the foul lines a bit, say Section 106 or 128. You have to contend with the overhang and the auxiliary scoreboard, which drops another 2 feet from the bottom of the Plaza level. If you're seated in those sections it's not that bad, but stand up and suddenly everything changes. These days, a couple of changes have been made to stadium design to help. Fan complaints about these overhangs force a few extra vertical feet into the plan, but ADA design guidelines mandate more vertical space. This is because wheelchair-bound fans are supposed to be able to have a clear line of sight over standing fans two rows ahead of them. The way to do this is to elevate the wheelchair rows an extra 18-30 inches above the row in front of them. If you've ever sat in the Coliseum's bleachers, you'll see those aluminum platforms in most of the wheelchair rows. This was done exactly for the reason cited above. It can be said that the original bowl's wheelchair seating placement would not work in a modern day stadium design.

All of this may sound like nitpicking, but it all conspires to add the equivalent of one or two stories onto the height of the stadium. Inevitably, the fans who pay the biggest price are the ones in the nosebleed sections.

Speaking of nosebleeds, whoever decided that the first row should be wide enough for circulation deserves a tongue lashing. It's one thing to to have a rail as an obstruction, but traffic should not be another. That's probably another reason why the View level was closed. I remember seeing staff that were directed to sell the seats above row 4 first because they had fewer obstructions. I can't think of another stadium in the country in which the first row is also used for circulation, and I've been to dozens of them.

Suiteholders pay a price too, though it's not as steep. In the Coliseum's case, suites in the original bowl are inferior to most other Bay Area venues' suites. They don't have separate restrooms. They're cramped. They don't have their own entries, concourses, or elevators. Problem is, if you design a separate concourse into the plan, that easy vertical circulation is eliminated. Then again, maybe that's what they want...

The Coliseum may have plenty of warts, but it's fantastic when it comes to height conservation and vertical circulation. The seats aren't too steep. It's easy to move between levels. Sadly, it doesn't work well in today's MLB. Don't expect this to carry over into the new ballpark.

Killion pleads for Magowan to cash in & Warriors + Oracle = deal

The type of column written by Ann Killion in today's Merc was bound to happen sooner or later. Colleague Mark Purdy had been pushing in this general direction. Both are now arguing that the Giants should relinquish territorial rights for the health of the franchise, or else they won't get anything if/when the A's move to Fremont and effectively encroach on the South Bay.

Killion asked Wolff about territorial rights while both were in Detroit for the ALCS last week:

Wolff completely dismissed any lingering idea of moving the A's to San Jose -- a step that would require a deal with the Giants over territorial rights.

``That's over,'' Wolff said. ``Dead. Over. I'm not going to waste one more ounce of energy on it.''

And that statement is important, whether you believe Wolff or not. The A's have been in full-on sales mode regarding the new ballpark/village concept for some time now. At this point details are very important, especially the site. While San Jose may be more desirable for some in the Valley, the obstacles are enormous and it's possible that the financing plan being applied to the Fremont site can't work in San Jose without major modifications and delays.

Supposedly, the rub is that the Giants in the post-Bonds era could be in such dire financial straits that they may be looking for a bailout of sorts. Don't believe it. While Bay Area fans can argue for days about Brian Sabean's competency as Giants GM, the Giants will get enough players or stars to bring out a minimum of interested fans. A $75-85 million payroll allows for this - see Seattle for proof. That doesn't mean the Giants will be good, but they will at least have one overpriced slugger and probably one overpaid arm. Who knows, they may get rid of Sabean and overpay for a GM.

The idea that the Giants are going to be hemorrhaging money for the next decade is ludicrous. Let's remember some key facts about their operations:

• They may have $20 million in debt service every year, but they can write off about $5-7 million of that thanks to MLB's stadium operations expenses deduction.
• They're past the sixth year of their tenancy at China Basin, and officials have admitted that they can pull in 34,000 per game and still remain financially healthy. Below that, and they'd have to slash payroll a bit. Use this as a guide: each drop of 1,000 per game equates to $2.5 million in revenue. Even if they were to keep the entire amount (which they don't thanks to revenue sharing) that amount wouldn't even pay for a marginal player. If the G-men were to average less than 25,000 per game, then I'd be concerned. I don't see this happening.
  
• Thanks to vested interests in both KTVU and KNBR, the Giants can hide ad revenue and local broadcast rights fees. In 2003, a season after the Giants went to the World Series, they reported non-gate revenue of $78 million. The A's reported $75 million. Who's kidding whom?
  
• If it really does become dire straits for the Giants, they can do what the A's have been doing for years: suck on the teat of revenue sharing, if only temporarily.
  

Besides, even if the two teams actually got to the point of discussing the actual value of territorial rights, where would they begin? An immediate one-time cash infusion won't help since the Giants apparently can't pay off the debt early. Why would A's ownership want to buy the proverbial cow (territorial rights) if they can get the milk for free? Fremont creates a very compelling revenue trifecta for the A's:

• They could secure better bond interest rates because revenue streams to secure the bonds would not be tied solely to stadium revenue (the Giants struggled with this initially). Entitlements would pick up a majority if not all of the cost.
• Through some clever organizational setup (hiding revenue), the A's could still have the aforementioned stadium expenses deduction even though their stadium-related debt load would be near zero.
• Not having to pay the Giants while having similar access to Valley companies equates to increased dividends for the owners - ahem - or increased payroll.
  

Both the A's and Giants would have interesting advantages in the Bay Area market if everything stayed status quo. The Giants would have the vertical integration that comes with media ownership stakes, while the A's would have little debt on a brand new stadium. Without delving too deeply into the numbers, I'd say that's a Wash.

---

The Warriors and the Coliseum JPA have finally hooked a big one for their naming rights deal: Redwood Shores database giant Oracle. Two interesting things about the deal: 1) It's only 10 years long, and 2) the venue will be simply called "The Oracle" with no apparent reference to Oakland. 10 years is a virtual blink of the eye in naming rights terms, and it doesn't cover the remaining balance on the expected naming rights fee contribution to the arena renovation's debt service. Perhaps there's an option that could be exercised by Oracle. Regarding the name, I suppose it's "fitting" that if the team doesn't have Oakland in the name, the venue doesn't have to either.

Deconstructing the Coliseum, Part I: The Bowl Shape

This is the first article of a new series called "Deconstructing the Coliseum." The purpose is not to trash it or spit on it, for the Coliseum has served its purpose admirably over the years. Instead, my goal is to educate readers of this site on what to potentially expect from a new ballpark, and how it compares with the current situation and other ballparks as well. The first part of this task is explaining where the Coliseum succeeds and fails.

The idea came from my re-reading Philip Bess's excellent paean to urban ballparks, City Baseball Magic. Bess, an accomplished architect, professor, and noted baseball architecture critic, put together an alternative plan to the new Comiskey Park (a.k.a. US Cellular Field) called Armour Field. Armour Field harkened back to the first ballpark building boom in the early 20th century and had many similarities to Manhattan's long departed Polo Grounds. As part of the plan, he compared Armour Field's dimensions and layout to the HOK-planned Comiskey, which itself was an updated version of Kansas City's Kauffman (née Royals) Stadium, considered the hallmark of baseball stadium design during the late 80's. (Oh how things change!) While Comiskey was hailed when it first opened, it only took a year before its gleam was eclipsed by the first true Neoclassic ballpark, Camden Yards. In the intervening years, Comiskey was rightly bashed for its steep and recessed upper deck and its three levels of suites and club seats. It was also criticized for its initially symmetrical dimensions, which I personally didn't have a problem with because at least they weren't contrived. In the intervening years, Comiskey has under gone renovations, chief among them the lopping off of the top eight rows of seats - a nod to increasing scarcity and the vertigo-inducing scary nosebleed rows up there.

Prior to my re-reading City Baseball Magic, I had been working on a new ballpark model. Since we lack a specific ballpark model other than the high-concept drawings shown in August 2005, I figured I'd put my own together to create a similar alternative concept. Like the Wolff-360 plan, it has:

• 35,000 seats
• 40 luxury suites and 40 mini (4-6 person) suites
• Expansive club area
• Hotel/Apartments
• Party Suites
• Two decks (sort of)
• Increased intimacy

Bess's book got me to overlay my concept over the Coliseum. What I found was rather surprising. While we all know that the Coliseum's round shape is not ideal for baseball, this overlay really illustrates the problem. But first, let's take a look at the baseline - the Coliseum footprint.

Like the old cookie-cutter stadia, the Coliseum is based on a series of concentric circles, the smallest of which is a 400-foot ring where the field meets the first row of seats. Using 400 feet as a guide makes sense because a football field is 360 feet long, while a baseball field's dimensions are 330-400 feet excluding foul territory. The give-and-take required penalizes spectators of either sport in a multitude of ways, many of which I'll get into later.

The Green area represents the field and its quirky dimensions. Yellow represents the lower deck (Field level), Red the mezzanine (Plaza level), and Blue the upper deck (now closed View level). Yes, it is to scale (approximately), and it's based on estimates and measurements I've made in the bowl over the last several years.

Now let's strip it back to just the lower deck and overlay the first deck of my (unnamed) concept:

Take a look at the how many seats are in the green area. You may be asking where the rest of the lower deck seats are. The next graphic shows the rest of those seats.

In this case, the concept is still far superior to the Coliseum because of the shortened distance to the field. Even the small area where the Coliseum has closer seats, the backstop, was only created because of a design quirk that caused the "notch" in the bowl. This affirms the notion that those sections behind the plate (x15-x19) are some of the best in baseball. Unfortunately, everything else pales in comparison.

Next, let's compare at the upper tiers.

This has the concept's upper deck overlaid with the closed View level. Notice how the concept's upper deck actually fits within most of the front rim of the View level. In the seats down the line, this translates to fans being as much as 70 feet closer, more than the distance between pitcher and hitter. Since the View level is closed, it may make sense to use the Plaza level in the comparison instead. The next graphic shows what such a comparison looks like.

Here, the concept is also better though the differences aren't as vast. But that's still remarkable considering the fact that the Plaza level was never built to be used as an upper deck. It sheds light on the compromises made when using a circular stadium design.

I remember taking some friends to an opening night game a decade ago. We sat in the third or fourth row of section 323. It was one friend's first time at the Coliseum, and the first comment he made was, "Man, are we far." Far, indeed.

Tomorrow, I'll cover height as it relates to the Coliseum.

Expect to go over budget

Over the weekend, DC area architect Roger K. Lewis wrote a column for the Washington Post that serves as a primer for the ballpark construction process - in this case the Nats' new park. The piece does not cover political squabbles or the financing component. Nevertheless, it's a short, handy thumbnail sketch what should be expected to occur once shovels hit dirt.

The main points to cover:

Project size or scope increases. This results from changing needs, shifting market or financial conditions, or more stringent regulatory requirements.

When this is applied to the A's-Pacific Commons situation, it's easy to see that this will be the biggest factor. The relatively smaller size of the ballpark should make that component cheaper to construction, but once you add adjacent projects such as the hotel/condo building, museum, and other features, the price tag goes up quickly. Perhaps one of the goals is to have each of these units, including the ballpark, act as autonomous, self-running entities, which are to be funded and operated separately. The danger in this approach is that if one of these units doesn't "pencil out" initially, construction could be delayed until that unit evolves into something more feasible.

Field testing reveals unanticipated site conditions. Soil borings may disclose organic fill, clay, rock or groundwater. Undocumented utilities, structures or residual toxic chemicals may lurk below the surface. Hidden structural problems may be uncovered in buildings being renovated. Always expensive to remedy, unforeseen site problems may seriously delay a project and can blow the budget.

This shouldn't be a problem at Pacific Commons as a thorough EIR has already been written and much of it (relative to pre-existing conditions) should be applicable to the new project. The only thing being done on the site is the construction of a flood control culvert to replace a filled-in channel, and that was part of the original project.

Building material price escalation exceeds predictions. Project budgets are sensitive to the cost of basic building materials -- wood, concrete, steel, aluminum -- that are market commodities. Inflation affecting a building's major components -- mechanical, plumbing, electrical and lighting systems -- also can wreck a budget, as can rising costs for exterior wall assemblies, windows and doors, interior partitions, ceilings and flooring.

It's difficult to forecast the prices of steel and concrete 3-4 years from now, but at least this project will avoid the materials shortage that hit nationwide after Hurricane Katrina. With a ballpark, just about anything can be redesigned with an emphasis on value engineering, from the facade to the seats to the restroom fixtures or the scoreboards. The net result of value engineering, when done in excess, is the appearance of cheap materials or cutting corners, as was apparently the case in the new Busch Stadium.

The construction labor market heats up. The law of supply and demand governs the building industry. When contractors are flush with work and skilled labor is in short supply, prices rise. When construction slows and contractors are hungry, prices fall. Because project planning and design can last years after initial budget adoption, a busier construction market inevitably increases costs.

This is another factor that's difficult to forecast. The housing slowdown forecast for the East and South Bay for the next few years could keep the labor market friendly, but it could also make the financing mechanism (sale of entitlements) more difficult to execute. Though we're in a down period, new home sales all over the Bay Area are still good, which could mitigate things a bit. As far as big projects, there are high rises planned in both downtown Oakland and downtown San Jose. If the legal issues clear up, the Estuary/O29 project will be huge. A large amount of the SF Mission Bay project will be winding up by the end of the decade. Some of the larger tech companies will be building bigger and bigger campuses. And there's no telling how much infill housing will be started in the Bay Area.

But what of the "other" required stuff, such as parking? It may be advantageous to keep a ground lease for land destined for parking, but what form will the facility take? Garages are much more expensive to build than simply paved surface lots, and they may have limited use for the cost. On the other hand, surface parking tends to be an extremely inefficient use of land - even in a place where the developers may have up to 160 acres at their disposal. Which approach wins, and who pays for it?

Okay, I'll bite on the name

Update: Two editorials were published this week on the A's possible move to Fremont. Both the San Jose Mercury News and the Fremont Argus support the efforts, pointing out the inability of the A's and the City of Oakland to work out a deal. The Argus thinks the team name could be "Oakland A's of Fremont," while the Merc doesn't rule out a "San Jose A's" sobriquet.

Folks, I shake my head at how half of the comment threads seem to get hijacked by the "city name" debate. There are all sorts of legitimate reasons for why one city may be included over another, but we simply don't know the true criteria that are being used. However, I think that if one of the main reasons for relocating the team (pursuit of Silicon Valley money) is the same as what's being used to name the team, it makes sense to use a designator befitting all of this new support:

Silicon Valley A's

Cringe all you want, but the political/economic forces at work are every bit as powerful as those from a municipality. One of those forces is the Silicon Valley Leadership Group (formerly the Silicon Valley Manufacturing Group), whose latest media foray was a widely quoted study from a month ago that cited Silicon Valley as both the best and worst technology hub in the US (VC money for the former, cost of doing business for the latter). One of the main tenets of SVLG's core policy is the addition of housing, especially affordable housing in the Valley. Guess what the A's-Pacific Commons project would do? That's right, it would add housing in the Valley.

The speech that Lew Wolff made in August was sponsored by the San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce. Why both names? It's pretty obvious that Silicon Valley has far surpassed San Jose as the real catch-all descriptor of the area. Take Google's purchase of YouTube. Neither company is described as being near San Jose or San Francisco. Both are considered Valley companies, even though YouTube's San Bruno location is arguably outside the generally accepted definition of Silicon Valley.

While I was in Australia, I had several people ask me where my company's headquarters were. I explained they were in Fremont, which was often met with blank stares. Once I amended "Silicon Valley" or "San Francisco" to my response everyone knew what I was talking about. "San Jose" required a qualifier most of the time. San Jose's struggle with its own identity is typified by its motto, "The Capital of Silicon Valley". Most everyone that lives and works here knows such a tagline is a fallacy. That's partly due to how quickly things change here, but it also has much to do with the sprawling, homogeneous nature of the region. Downtown San Jose has a single major corporate headquarters, Adobe, and it's begging for nVidia to move to an empty building downtown. Meanwhile, Google is creating a mega-campus in Mountain View/Moffett Field, Yahoo is entrenched in Sunnyvale but is looking to make its own mega-campus in Santa Clara, not far from Great America. Apple's always been a Cupertino company. HP has always been a Palo Alto firm. Intel belongs in Santa Clara. Cisco in north San Jose. Sand Hill Road is in Menlo Park.

Not every Valley firm will be gung-ho about being lumped in with a particular city, especially if it's not their home. But they can all identify with being Valley companies. If the A's want something that makes sense to all of these new corporate sponsors, a proper nod to the Valley is in order.

Will the owners and the commish go for it? And what about Oakland?

Coliseum lease extension done (almost)

Looks like the A's are taking another step towards staying in Alameda County, with the end of their stay in Oakland getting pushed out a little further. CoCoTimes' Chris Metinko reports that the A's will have a hard lease at the Coliseum through 2010, with three option years after that.

It makes me wonder whether the news that the A's bought property adjacent to Pacific Commons pushed some of the board members over the top.

Once the deal is signed by the County Board of Supervisors and Oakland's City Council, the A's will have supreme leverage over their venue situation, with a huge buffer covering any expected groundbreaking and opening dates.

The terms have been changed to eliminate the stipulation that the A's give the JPA 50 cents for each admission over 2 million. Conspiracy theorists pointed this as a greedy reason why the A's tarped off the upper deck. If the A's are paying 50 cents per person (as opposed to 50% of each ticket), that's not a lot of money to give up even if the A's hit 2.5 million this season. As I had written previously, ownership wanted to establish a more sophisticated price tiering system, while also being able to fund payroll increases.

Finally, Oakland responds

Quotes abound in Paul T. Rosynsky's Trib article. While Ignacio De La Fuente continues his bravado filled whistling-in-the-dark routine, fellow councilperson Jane Brunner has more pointed comments about Wolff:

"We all got this feeling, everybody who met with him, we all walked away thinking he was just not interested," said Councilmember Jane Brunner (North Oakland). "When you negotiate with someone, you need a nibble. ... There was just no nibble."

Brunner said the city had put together plans for three potential sites for a new ballpark, including one that would have incorporated it into the Oak to Ninth housing development along the waterfront.

Each time a proposal went to Wolff it was rejected, she said.

Start off with Brunner's quote about Wolff's willingness to work in Oakland. Now this makes sense. Cynics point to Wolff's single concept (Coliseum North) and its small chance of success as a "token" proposal. There's a lot of circumstantial evidence that makes it appear that Wolff hasn't tried very hard to make it work in Oakland. At the same time, Wolff has in the past said that the city hadn't suggested any other sites. Brunner's comment contradicts this, and while I've heard rumblings about three site proposals being floated, this is the first time I've really seen this sentiment in public.

Let's go back to the summer, when the final development plan for Oak-to-Ninth/O29/Estuary was up for city council review (it passed). A coalition of citizens groups worked in August to get the plan on the November ballot, and while they appeared to get enough signatures, the petition was blocked by Oakland's city attorney. Why was this coalition against the project? The reasons:

• Housing goes against the scope of the Estuary Policy Plan. This would not have changed if a ballpark village with housing were under consideration.
• A lack of open space. With 60 acres available to develop and 18-20 used up by a ballpark village, that leaves 40 acres to split between parkland/open space and housing. And that's if it were done from the ground up. If, as I've heard, the proposal was to shoehorn the ballpark into the open space set aside for Signature's project, that would've been a complete nonstarter.
• Height concerns. When I spoke to a community group about the possibility of a ballpark, they asked me how tall the ballpark would be. When I said that it would be at least 100 feet tall not including light towers, there was a unanimous disapproval of the idea. Part of that comes from people in the hills not wanting anything blocking their view, not even a ballpark. And going back to the previous point, the housing would have to be in tall towers, which would make for even more obstructions.
• Preservation. The Ninth Avenue Terminal has historic value and should be preserved regardless of what goes up at O29 (It would make a nice location for a farmers market, a la SF's Ferry Terminal). However, it takes up too much space for it to be saved in any development plan.

Now, honestly, do you think that a ballpark village would not have experienced the same kind of resistance, if not moreso? And that's even without the consideration of additional subsidies, or the legislation/quid pro quo situation that made the O29 land deal possible.

Finger pointing has commenced.

Purdy: Magowan blew it

As usual, Merc columnist Mark Purdy does little to make Oakland partisans happy. In Purdy's most recent piece, he sets his sights squarely on Giants owner Peter Magowan:

Something else I know: The Giants are concerned about the A's possible move. Team owner Peter Magowan has stubbornly invoked his territorial rights clause to prevent the A's from moving to Santa Clara County. However, Magowan can do nothing to stop Wolff from going right to the county line and snatching away consumers on the other side.

How about this? About six weeks ago, Magowan and Giants executive Larry Baer were spotted in a vehicle in Fremont, eyeballing the A's potential new home. A tipster saw them stop for coffee at Starbucks, drive around the proposed ballpark site in their SUV, then hit the freeway.

When Baer was recently asked to confirm this sighting, he jokingly asked whether someone had placed a tracking chip in the vehicle.

And then Baer said: "I can neither confirm nor deny that it happened."

In other words, it happened.

Purdy points to a parade happening in San Jose, in 2010. If the A's are having trouble figuring out the right city (Oakland, Fremont, San Jose), perhaps the best place to have a parade would be San Francisco - just to rub it in.

A's buying land next to Pacific Commons

Foreshadowing? Maybe.

The Trib's Paul T. Rosynsky and Chris De Benedetti report that a firm acting as a front for Maritz, Wolff, and Co. has recently bought 10 acres of land across the street from the target Pacific Commons site. No, it's not the land that I pointed out last week, but it's immediately adjacent. The assessed value of the land is $5.9 million, though the purchase price was not disclosed. Unlike the target site, this land is largely occupied by, coincidentally, high tech companies (listing/aerial photo).

Just to show how much Lew Wolff is trying to keep this under wraps, the reporters disclosed how Wolff initially didn't confirm that the company had bought the land, then confirmed it several hours later. If they haven't yet bought the concrete plant, news about the purchase of nearby parcels certainly won't help keep the prices low.

From the article:

Speculation that the team would build a ballpark in Fremont intensified the day Wolff was hired by former owners Steve Schott and Ken Hoffman as vice president of venue development.

Although Wolff promised to search for sites in Oakland first, he never gave up the idea of building a ballpark in Fremont. Its proximity to San Jose and open tracts of land always kept it a contender as a future A's home.

Then in March, Wolff declared that Oakland did not have the time or space for a new ballpark.

That certainly gives credence to the notion that the ballpark effort hasn't exactly been Oakland-or-bust.

Matier and Ross: Fremont more and more likely

Not much new in Sunday's Matier and Ross column other than a few quotes from Alameda County Supe Scott Haggerty, who exudes confidence if not actual details. One sad note: the A's and the incoming Dellums administration have not spoken since the election.

I've stumbled upon a few things that may shed a tiny bit of light on the situation:

• In recent interviews, Lew Wolff hinted that at the end of the ballpark lease, it would be owned by the City of Fremont, not the A's. That indicates that the land on which the ballpark would site would also be owned by the city - if not immediately, then later. Does this mean that part of the deal is the A's giving the ballpark to the city? Or that the A's would buy the land, give it to the city, then have the city arrange a cheap/free ground lease for the A's? Obviously, after 30-40 years the ballpark will have depreciated significantly. It may not sound like it makes a huge difference whatever way it's structured, but for the A's there could be sizable tax implications.
• For those of you wondering how the existing Pacific Commons land deal works, here it is: ProLogis (formerly Catellus) owns the land. Cisco paid for a 34-year ground lease in advance, with the notion that they'd build a large campus there. The networking giant paid $105 million in prepaid rent as a result. If you're looking for a baseline for negotiations between the A's and Cisco, there you have it. There may be some inflation-related adjustment, but the figure itself is interesting. Consider this: Lucas Oil is paying $120 million over 20 years for naming rights to the new stadium for the Indianapolis Colts, while the University of Phoenix is paying $154 million over 20 years for naming rights for the Arizona Cardinals' new digs. If you're the A's, you can either swap the naming rights for ground lease transfer, or you can buy Cisco's lease rights and then get (some of/all of) the money back in the naming rights deal. Which sounds simpler? There are some complications in that the land on which housing would be built would have to be purchased instead of leased.
  

Right about now, I'm eager to see a plan.

Keeping up with the Joneses

To keep things in perspective, I've devoted this post to comparing where the A's are in their path to a new home as opposed to the other three MLB teams also working on new facilities: Minnesota, Florida, and Washington. Each team's situation is judged on four different factors (red = incomplete, green = completed):

• Political Process: Has a deal been struck between team ownership and local politicians? Or is it just at a proposal stage? If a vote was required, did it pass? And did it hold up under legal challenges?
• Funding: Public or private financing? Both? Is there a funding gap that needs to be bridged? Is the funding plan solid or full of question marks?
  
• Site Acquisition: First of all, has the team decided on a location? Next, how difficult is it to acquire? Is the land cheap or expensive? Is it a single parcel or something more complicated? Is there resistance to the acquisition? Is eminent domain involved?
• Construction: There are different stages: prep (demolition/cleanup), initial construction (pilings, concrete bowl), buildout (seats, electrical, plumbing, landscape, façade), and finishing touches (testing)
  

The four factors are interconnected enough that there are dependencies. For instance, funding problems delayed the construction of Petco Park. In this case, we'll keep it simple by presenting the factors in their normally chronological order. Let's start on the homefront.


As you can see, there's a long ways to go for the A's in getting a ballpark built. The limited amount of released information makes judging the process difficult. Fremont's City Council and Alameda County's Board of Supervisors will have to approve whatever is planned with the Pacific Commons land. Site acquisition is under negotiation with Cisco/ProLogis. I've seen comments elsewhere that point to problems with the effort, but it needs to be taken into account that 140 acres and potentially several thousand residents will come with the project, so this is not something that's going to be rubberstamped without serious public scrutiny over its impact.


The District's government was essentially hoodwinked into giving MLB a new stadium. In fact, the Nats' entire fiasco may have set back public discourse about stadium financing at least a decade, effectively wiping out positive trends towards private financing shown in San Francisco and St. Louis. Everything about the process has been ugly, from the countless debates among the pols to the District's use of eminent domain. Even now, there are problems with the District's ability to provide enough parking in parcels adjacent to the ballpark, and they may be forced to go over their legislated spending cap to get the garages constructed. At least they're progressing well in terms of construction progress.


Ballpark proponents got a contentious sales tax proposal passed in Hennepin County, which got them past an enormous hurdle. There's time to get construction started, but there's still a major piece of land to buy. Right now the ballpark is going to built as an open air facility, but concerns about weather may put the idea of a retractable roof on the table, which would raise costs at least $50 million.


The Marlins have the most in common with the A's at this point. The main difference is the funding method, which is mostly public. There is funding gap of varying size depending on which news reports you read. A 2005 ballpark proposal fell apart due to a $30 million funding gap. The biggest problem is that it's not completely clear where the Marlins will build. The frontrunner is Hialeah, on a large parcel that bears some similarities with Fremont's Pacific Commons. Supposedly there have been talks with: the City of Miami regarding land near the old Miami Arena, officials representing Pompano Beach who want to redevelop an old racetrack, and even Orlando, which has had its own issues with their existing top tier franchise.

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Wolff also cleared the air on the playoff tarp matter when he was interviewed by the Chronicle's John Shea:

As in the regular season, tarps will cover the upper deck and put capacity a touch over 35,000, including standing-room only tickets. The tarps would remain for the ALCS, but Major League Baseball, if it chooses, has the authority to reopen the upper deck for the World Series.

"If it's our call, it's going to stay covered," said Wolff, whose strategy for the tarps was to create a more intimate and fan-friendly environment. It's also a test run for any future park, in Fremont or elsewhere, which would have a similar capacity, according to Wolff's plans.

This should be a no-brainer since World Series sellouts should be guaranteed, but the big factor may be a feeling of home field advantage. If either the Mets or Cards represented the NL in the World Series, a large amount of those newly available seats would be swallowed up by proactive Mets/Cards fans, perhaps even a majority. How much money revenue may be passed up by MLB if they chose to keep all of those seats closed? Try $1.5 million. Per game. If nothing else, the revenue could help fund player win and loss shares.

Want a piece of Pacific Commons?

Or rather, some land right next to Pacific Commons? If you're interested (and have several million bucks to throw away), the old Christy Concrete plant is up for sale (PDF brochure). Certainly the current owners know about the plans for the surrounding area and will make some coin on the sale of their 16.3 acre property if it comes to fruition.

What do you get? Excellent access to 880 and visibility from the Nimitz as well, for starters. The location also has great access to both the ballpark site and the retail area nearby.

The 16+ acres is deceptive. Almost 6 acres is set aside for a pond (wetlands, that's right) but the other 10+ are good to go. The land is zoned light industrial. A tech company with a desire for a high-profile location might be interested. If local pols are amenable to zoning changes, the possibilities are endless.

Broadcast notes

Now that the playoffs are here, radio and television coverage has expanded as the national rightsholders have taken over. Here's a summary of what's coming:

• Radio: In addition to the A's Radio Network, ESPN Radio (via KNBR-1050) will cover the entire ALDS. According to KNBR's Gary Radnich, the play-by-play man for ESPN's broadcast will be veteran Ted Robinson, who last worked with the Mets and Giants and does Stanford football. Robinson, who was one of the names bandied about for the A's 2nd play-by-play job (filled by Vince Cotroneo), had previously worked TV for both the A's and Twins. If you're unfortunate enough to be unable to pull in the A's Radio Network, you could do far worse than Robinson, who is more than merely competent, does his research, and most importantly, spends a lot of time in the Bay Area and has familiarity with the market, so he isn't tainted by East Coast bias. No word on who the color commentator is.
• TV: I haven't heard who the broadcast team will be for ESPN's TV coverage, but it most assuredly won't be the normal Sunday night combo of Jon Miller and Joe Morgan. It could very well be Dave O'Brien and Rick Sutcliffe, who are passable but won't be lauded for in-depth knowledge of either team. If FOX picks up one or more of the weekend broadcasts, I'm guessing play-by-play will be picked up #2 man Josh Lewin (he of the slight lisp).

Enjoy the playoffs.

Update: According to this link, the Miller/Morgan team will cover the first game before moving to a different location. O'Brien/Sutcliffe will get games 2 & 3.

Pay no attention to that stuff behind the curtain

The recent issue of Silicon Valley Metro had a blurb about the A's/Earthquakes new South Bay office, which is due to open in downtown San Jose soon. The location? The ground floor of the Fairmont San Jose, of course. I wonder if the employees get free vouchers to eat at one of Lew Wolff's restaurants nearby?

The office is located in the middle of a pedestrian mall called Paseo de San Antonio, which acts as a "bridge" between SJSU and Plaza de Cesar Chavez. The Fairmont actually occupies both sides of an entire block of Paseo de San Antonio thanks to an annex built a few years back. (I imagine that Lew once had dreams about holding victory rallies out on the Plaza's stage. Maybe he still does?)

When the announcement was first made about the new Earthquakes group setting up shop downtown, there was no mention of the A's involvement. These days, however, it seems like everything is co-branded (ESPN on ABC? What?) so it only makes sense for the A's to have a presence.

From looking at the picture above, the missing piece appears to be the Earthquakes logo. That must be tied up in licensing somehow, and since the A's technically don't own the Quakes yet, they don't have rights to the logo. The A's logo is quite striking, and given the frequent talk of territorial rights, seems like... an invasion of sorts.

But wait, there's more!

The vinyl window coverings shield anything that's inside from view, but the office's location next to an entrance to the hotel must mean there's another entrance to the office somewhere... Eureka!

And it would appear that there's just a little crack of light coming the edge of the curtain on the left door. Let's take a look at what's in there.

As the Metro blurb noted, it's a wall-sized matte photo of a crowd. I couldn't get a good picture of the other stuff I saw: maple cabinetry, halogen lamps. It's starting to feel like a condominium sales center (physical stadium models and video flythroughs included) with a hint of boutique retail.

Historical footnote: For those wondering if this is some sort of territorial rights violation, remember that the A's once had multiple "A's Clubhouse" team stores. IIRC, there were locations at malls throughout the East Bay. There was one other location: the Great Mall in Milpitas. The stores closed sometime in the late 90's or a few years ago.

How to build a nice stadium on the cheap

The old adage, "Good, Fast, and Cheap - Pick Two!" applies to nearly everything from soup to software. In no way is stadium building spared. Design, materials, labor - all of these things cost time and money, and to get a distinctive, quality product usually requires a couple of years and a few hundred million dollars for starters. Which makes the Stanford Stadium renovation particularly interesting. Done in only nine months and for $100 million dollars, Stanford now has a first-class facility that it can proudly use to showcase to recruits and alumni alike. So did John Arrillaga's baby somehow escape the old maxim? Well.... sort of.

Built in 1921, the old Stanford Stadium was the oldest large venue in the Bay Area. It's had a good history, hosting a Super Bowl and filling in nicely as an understudy for Candlestick Park when the latter was damaged in Loma Prieta. Despite this, the structure itself was very simply built, with bleachers anchored to a man-made oval-shaped hill. The listed capacity of 86,000 made Stanford Stadium appear much larger than it was in person - even though the LA Coliseum held only 20,000 more people, it seemed twice as immense. Stanford Stadium's large stated capacity ended up being a curse. As a small school (in terms of enrollment and alumni) compared to its Pac-10 rivals, the football program had a difficult time selling tickets for a football program whose rollercoaster fortunes made it difficult to sustain a following among the picky Bay Area sports consumer. For years, alumni and the athletics department wanted to redo the stadium to become more like the Oregon's Autzen Stadium: a 54,000-seat venue whose intimacy made it one of the toughest places to play in the country.

In 2005, construction finally began following Stanford's last game versus Notre Dame on November 26, 2005. The project was originally slated to be complete by the team's scheduled first home game against San Jose State this past September 9. Delays forced the opening date to be pushed back one week until the next home game against Navy. Other than that, there were no considerable delays. Crews worked 16 hours a day, every day to get the job done. A design-build approach was used to reduce development time and make decision-making quick. Longtime Stanford booster and alum John Arrillaga, who also seemingly built half the Silicon Valley, took the reins of the project.

So what does $100 million and nine months get you? Let's take a look.

The Upper Deck

As the cheap seats, the upper deck is usually considered a design afterthought, or a method to squeeze in the required number of seats after you've taken care of the rich folks with the suites in club seats. In this case, it's a testament to cost-cutting. Over half of Stanford Stadium's seats (29,000) are in the upper deck, and unlike the previous version, the seats aren't anchored to a hill. Instead, they're supported using steel beams and concrete columns. The secret is in the aluminum risers that hold the seats. Lightweight and quick to fabricate, the risers were undoubtedly the best choice to keep costs down, especially with the rising cost of concrete. Nearly every large stadium in the Bay Area has aluminum risers in use somewhere, including the Coliseum, where the portable field level Mt. Davis seats are moved in and out of the stadium depending on the A's and Raiders' schedules. It's unusual to see aluminum used so broadly, but here it makes sense. Such a technique could be difficult to duplicate at a ballpark due to the irregular shape of a baseball grandstand. I could see all of the outfield seats treated in this manner, which has one particular benefit: stomping on aluminum is a lot noisier than stomping on concrete.

Not only are the risers aluminum, they are the same size throughout the upper deck. A typical baseball or football stadium will have a combination of bleachers and regular seats, and this one is no different. However, in this case the row treads (row depths) are the same regardless of the type of seating. At 30 inches, the treads are better than your garden variety bleachers (24") but not as good as typical chairback seat treads (33"). If you happen to be taller than average height, you'll feel the lack of leg room immediately. The universal nature of the row tread allowed the design to include a maximum number of seats while eliminating quirks that can come up when dealing with different tread widths, such as different aisles for each seating type. 3 inches may not sound that significant, but in this case it means an extra 4 rows in the east grandstand, translating to 1,000 seats.

Consolidate!

In the picture above, you see a short lower deck, the lower concourse immediately above it, then the upper deck and press box. Surprisingly, this is not a common configuration for football. Unlike baseball, where current design trends dictate open concourses that have views of the field, football stadia architects are not bound by such an aesthetic. Instead, they're told to use all available space for seats and suites. The open concourse shown here isn't just for a pretty view, it has a practical purpose as well. New ADA requirements demand that 1% of all seating be wheelchair accessible, with at least the same amount of companion seats. Upper deck seating is inaccessible for wheelchairs from the tunnels/vomitories because they all use stairs or have no landings for wheelchairs. To allocate enough wheelchair seating for both the upper and lower levels, the lower concourse was created. There's also some accessible seating at the top of the upper deck along each corner and end zone. Sidebar: as part of the Coliseum's renovation to bring the Raiders back, the formerly open lower concourse had concrete walls or slatted fences placed in back of many of the seating sections. Nowadays, the only places where you can get a good view behind a seating section are - that's right - in some places where there is wheelchair seating.

The press box is also a place where money was saved. They started by incorporating a pre-existing elevator for the old press box (nice reuse!). The three level structure appears fancy enough, with two separate stadium club areas: one enclosed on the first floor and one on the roof. In between are the "print media" level and the TV/radio level. The building only has seven luxury suites, which is a low number that reflects how college football is sold. While the big program schools have lots of suites (though not nearly as many as NFL stadia), the real money is in those enclosed club areas, where high powered alumni and boosters can mingle and network. By placing all of these facilities in a single structure, assuredly much money was saved as opposed to the usual alternative: spreading thousands of square feet of luxury suites around the ring of the stadium.

Cutting corners
A few other little touches show signs of cost-cutting while not appearing cheap:

• The beams and railings weren't painted, giving them an "industrial chic" look.
• An entire scoreboard/video board from the old stadium was saved and reused.
• The set of arches in the north end aren't adorned with engravings of latin phrases or marble gargoyles. They're clean and simple.
• I went into one of the men's restrooms on the lower concourse and noticed that it didn't have a ceiling. No big deal there, it was well lit. If you're worried about a stench wafting into the concourse, it shouldn't be a problem. The stadium will get used perhaps a couple dozen times a year (at most?).
• The landscaped hill that forms the outer façade appears relatively unchanged, except for some new bushes here and there. The stairs that take you up to the upper concourse (much like the Coliseum) are still there.
  

Spending money where it counts
There are two places where there was no evidence of skimping. First is the fantastic distributed sound system, made of numerous clusters of JBL Pro speakers. It had, to my somewhat trained ear, a nice flat response that was clear from everywhere in the stadium. Best of all, there was little leakage outside the stadium that I could detect - an all-important aspect for a stadium that is close to some well-heeled residential neighborhoods. The reduced footprint of the seating bowl contributes to this effect as it takes less power to provide the PA to everyone in the stadium.
"Hi-Def Football" has been a recent tagline in selling the new Stanford Stadium. The video screens spread throughout don't disappoint. The video/matrix boards (Daktronics, I believe) in both end zones are excellent, even though they aren't needed to broadcast the game since the sightlines are so good from anywhere in the seating bowl. I can't leave out the numerous HD LCD screens throughout the lower concourse (HP provided, of course), though at first glance it looks like they weren't set up properly. The colors appeared a bit washed out, as if they were using simple analog coax when they should've been using some kind of digital or composite connection.

Grading the experience
While just about any change would've been a vast improvement over the old Stanford Stadium, this renovation went beyond what I had expected. The new stadium is not only modern with this millenium's creature comforts, it has legs. If they needed to expand it by 10,000 seats it could be done fairly easily. They preserved the character of the old structure while improving it seismically, giving fans the best views of any Bay Area football stadium to boot. It's possible that the package could start to look dated in a decade or two, but college football is a far less demanding market than the pro sports. That said, I'm not certain that many of the lessons here can be applied to a new A's ballpark. There are too many different and segmented markets that have to be catered to at a MLB facility. MLB is not simply about the game anymore. It's about having as many avenues as possible to take a fan's hard-earned cash. Stanford Stadium doesn't speak to that, at least not with $3 hot dogs and one-size-fits-all treads. Now if the Cardinal can only field a decent team...

New Coliseum lease in the works

The Trib's Paul T. Rosynsky gets the scoop on a new Coliseum lease extension, but in addition he sheds light on the weirdly complicated political machine that exists within and around the Coliseum Authority.

Consider the fact that the guy getting the deal done, Alameda County Supervisor Scott Haggerty, isn't even on the current Coliseum Authority board. He was kicked out as part of a power play when, several years ago, Haggerty pushed for Fremont as an option in the HOK study. According to the article, Haggerty is scheduled to rejoin the board soon. As a supe, he'll also have the chance to rubber stamp the very deal he put together as part of its final approval process. Who asked him to make the deal? Authority President Gail Steele, who is also a supe - and just as important, in whose district the Pacific Commons land lies. Why? Probably because Haggerty has a good working relationship with Wolff - as far as we know.

With Nate Miley soon leaving the Authority board, the only real holdout left is IDLF. If IDLF is really committed to keeping the team in Oakland, it will soon become his time to show his hand.

A's won't hit 2 million but will make more money?

The final totals aren't in yet, but with one week left in the A's home schedule, the A's have pulled in slightly less than 1.8 million fans. According to Attendance Watch (sidebar on the right), the team has averaged 24,251 per game over 74 dates. The projected total for the full 81-game season is 1,964,352. That makes them over one game's attendance short of 2 million.

That may sound disappointing, but based on comments by Lew Wolff and Michael Crowley, they're satisfied with the turnout. I've noticed that many critics of the third deck closure have claimed the strategy would fail, but they didn't exactly say what failure meant. If it meant that the A's wouldn't boost attendance, there's no news there because at no point did the front office indicate that total attendance would rise. Instead, they pointed to increases in season ticket and advance sales, which appears to have happened. All of this came at a price - the reduction in walk-up makes the A's far less accessible for younger or less wealthy fans. As I posited at the beginning of the season, sections 315-319 were perhaps too good for their price. By eliminating those sections, $10 seats (other than the regular bleachers) are what they are in most other MLB stadia: cheap seats with compromised views.

Even with the dropoff, ticket prices were raised 25%. Ticket prices have risen steadily since the start of the A's recent run of success. The A's average ticket price is now in line with the league average.

So really it's a matter of matching or surpassing revenue targets by not dropping attendance 25%. No team readily releases its finances to the public, so the following chart is just a guess. It's the product of the past two charts' data while factoring in a 15% discount. That should cover the inherent discounts in season ticket packages, promotional discounts such as BART Double Play Wednesdays, and other changes. It does not take into account revenue from suites or special premium seats like the Diamond Level.

If my assumptions are correct, that's a 17% increase over 2005, and over double (121%) the revenue of the year 2000. Talk about beating the recession. At the same time, payroll is up 12% over 2005 and almost double (94%) over 2000, so it's not as if it's all going to the owners. With the incentives that Frank Thomas will earn this season, the numbers will line up much more evenly (payroll up 17% over 2005 and slightly over double 2000's payroll).

What can we glean from this? All we can say at this point is that the A's are able to pay the bills and make some money for themselves, assuming that revenue sharing receipts are similar to what the A's have received over the past two CBA's. Looking at the trend from 2001 through 2005, the A's would've been hard pressed to fund the payroll by continuing with the previous pricing scheme. But what would've happened had they kept the third deck open and simply raised ticket prices 9% (the trend) across the board? Unless they had an enormous (20% or more) spike in attendance, they would've been short. Sure, they could've had other revenue coming from other sources such as the MLB national media deals, but come on - these people aren't in business to lose money, at least not on a regular basis. If you're looking for a nefarious scheme to swindle fans, it's not here. It's my sincere hope that in the new venue there will be creative methods of getting affordable tickets for the small, but vocal group of disenfranchised fans affected by the third deck closure. I've come up with a couple of ideas on this blog, and I think I've got a few more up my sleeve.

BTW, the A's have an outside chance of surpassing the 2 million mark. However, they'd have to average 30,000 per game for the rest of the homestand to do it. Considering the next four games will be against an out-of-contention, Travis Hafner-less Cleveland Indians squad, I can't see it happening.

Coliseum extension talks die

Any time it takes several months to essentially repeat a pre-existing financial arrangement, something must be amiss. And so tonight it's being reported that talks between the A's and Coliseum JPA over a three-year lease extension have broken down. This obviously sets the stage for the A's last season in Oakland to be 2010. Here are some links:

• Josh Suchon's Contra Costa Times article
• AP story
• ABC7/KGO anchor Jessica Aguirre's interview with Lew Wolff
  

This puts the A's in a little bit of a bind. Wolff admitted in the Aguirre interview (worthwhile read - Wolff explains the funding mechanism) that it would take at least a year for environmental and other studies to be completed. That's an indicator that the previous EIR's for the original Pacific Commons wouldn't simply be accepted with addenda or other changes that reflected the modified scope of the project. Assuming everything went smoothly from this point forward, it's possible construction could start either in the spring or summer of 2007, but any number of things could delay the project. 48 months is plenty of time to build a ballpark - especially are smaller-than-MLB-normal park. The A's will be helped by the fact that there's no demolition involved.

Should the delay push the groundbreaking out, the team could still get started by the end of the 2007 season without significant impact. If it goes beyond the end of the 2008 season, the A's would be faced with a number of options, none of which are terribly palatable:

• Ask for a short-term extension of the Coliseum lease for 3 months or so. They'll likely pay through the nose for such an option, and it's possible that it wouldn't even be on the table if the JPA and the Raiders are already talking about a Coliseum renovation that makes the bowl even more of a football-specific venue (don't expect the Raiders to bolt for LA). Precedent: the Seattle Mariners used the Kingdome for the first part of the 1999 season when delays pushed the opening of Safeco Field until July 15.
  
• Use Raley Field as a temporary home for the first half of the season. This would be similar to the how the A's were forced to play at Las Vegas' Cashman Field for the first few weeks of the 1996 season. At least the facilities at Raley are in significantly better shape than utilitarian Cashman. Raley could conceivably be expanded by some 5-10,000 seats, but that would have to be negotiated since the A's-River Cats deal ends in 2010. Impact to the River Cats' schedule is unknown.
  
• Ask the Giants to use SBC Park temporarily. While there is precedent to crosstown rivals using each others' parks (Precedent: the Yanks used the Mets' Shea Stadium in 1975-76 while the House that Ruth Built was getting modernized), don't count on it happening.
  

My guess is that the greatest opposition will come from environmental and land use advocates, as well as Fremont residents who either don't want a large project like a ballpark in town and/or don't support any potential subsidies for the A's - regardless of what shape those subsidies take. There promises to be an outcry from the stay-in-Oakland crowd, but it remains to be seen exactly strong it will stay or how it will evolve over the next year or so.

One other thing - Lew put a price tag on the stadium without land: $400 million (thanks James).

Hope for Sacramento?

The A's recently signed a four-year extension to their development agreement with the Sacramento River Cats. The key here is that the agreement runs through 2010. That's pretty much the same year that the A's other agreements - leases, radio, television - run out.

From a strategic standpoint, it puts the A's in an extremely flexible position once the current arrangements end, whether it's in the Bay Area or beyond. But does that mean a potential exodus to Sacramento? Bee columnist Marcus Bretón, who has been championing the A's moving to Sac for several years, says it's possible but isn't counting on such a development.

Any talk about Sacramento has been complicated by joint efforts of downtown Sacramento business leaders and the Kings to build a downtown arena. The arena would be located on the site of a 240-acre, abandoned Union Pacific railyard. Two measures are on the November ballot for a 1/4-cent sales tax hike in Sacramento county as well as a plan to develop the railyard, which would conceivably include the arena. However, yesterday the Maloofs broke off talks with the city/county over the size and scope of the arena piece. Supposedly the plan is short on parking for the arena, among other things.

Does this provide an opening for the A's? It's possible, but it would be a long shot. First off, a ballpark alone could have double the physical footprint of an arena (in this plan the arena is 8.5 acres, a ballpark could be 12-18 acres). While parking requirements in the area adjacent to a ballpark may not be as large as what the Kings are looking for, there'd still be a requirement of some 1,200 spaces or more. That would stretch the ballpark's scope to around 20 acres, which is exactly the amount of land being allocated for the entire arena/entertainment district area.

For Sacramento to even be able to entertain the A's in this regard, several things would have to happen:

• Measures Q (authorizes usage of funds from Measure R) & R (1/4-cent sales tax hike over 15 years) must pass
• The Kings choose not to go with a downtown arena (possible, given a recent statement by Joe Maloof)
• Downtown interests redo their redevelopment plan to include a ballpark instead of an arena
• City/county allow the Kings to build elsewhere without being required to provide public funds - this could mean in or out of Sacramento

Supposedly the tax would generate some $1 billion or more over the 15 years of the tax hike. Keep in mind that this money would not just go towards a ballpark. It would go towards the development of the remaining 220 acres, and that means large amounts of infrastructure. Cleanup of the land is expected to be costly. The land purchase is still under negotiation. I would be surprised if the various parties would be able to turn around and get something done in a year. My guess is that it won't.

Bretón misreads the A's situation in his article. He writes that the A's have been faithful to the East Bay by virtue of the talks with Fremont, but based on Lew Wolff's speech for the San Jose Chamber last week, it's only true if "East Bay" were replaced by "Greater Bay Area."

News from around the land

One more "Choose or Lose the A's" event is slated for this Friday at 5:00 in the Coliseum B-Lot. More info can be found at the Green Stampede and A's Fan Radio myspace pages.

In SI's annual Fan Value Index (ratings based on surveyed attendees at various games), McAfee Coliseum came in 20th out of the 30 MLB parks. As usual, there's a cheap shot at the idea of the A's moving to Vegas or Louisville (???), but these days that comes with the territory. The Coliseum scores high in terms of Accessibility (public transportation, parking) and Team (of course) but low in Neighborhood. Wrigley Field, of all places, scores lower - but that's due to the Cubs being so awful this season. One thing that deserves reading further: the Accessibility section of each ballpark is quite telling. Compare the two Bay Area ballparks' results to the LA parks. If Fremont is the place, the challenge will be in convincing the public that the experience will be more like the former than the latter.

There are a slough of articles (Merc, Chron, Ratto) about the opening of the new Stanford Stadium this weekend. The privately-financed project, which has taken just over 9 months and $100 million, is considered a minor miracle in stadium development parlance. I'll go into why next week after I check the place out during its inaugural game on Saturday night.

In St. Louis, the Cardinals have stretched out their hands for what could be $100 million in subsidies to fund their updated version of a ballpark village. This project is one to watch for it could provide a blueprint as to how an A's ballpark village might look, even if the funding methods aren't the same.

Lew reveals tidbit on Extra Innings

Remember how Lew Wolff in the beginning of the season that he expects to make an announcement about the A's future home by the end of the season? Well, it appears that he now expects to push that date out until perhaps the end of the year. He admitted as much during Robert Buan's interview with him after today's comeback victory. Wolff said that things are progressing on the ballpark front, but didn't get into any specifics. He also mentioned that he's part of baseball's Enterprise committee (which covers branding among many business-related aspects), and that he wants to be part of the Advanced Media committee (internet).

Honestly, this shouldn't shock anyone. These deals can take a long time to gestate even if on the surface they appear simple. The possible delay may be interpreted any number of ways. I'll stay away from that kind of speculation for now.

Pacific Commons Wetlands

On my way to the Coliseum over the weekend I stopped off at Pacific Commons to see if anything has happened at the site. No surprises there. Earthmoving equipment was in the same place as before. The Auto Mall is filling in nicely with a new Lexus dealership almost completed at the south end. A Claim Jumper location opened while I was away. And cows are grazing on the meadows that intermingle with the marsh.

What? Cows in Fremont? (queue the old Berkeley Farms ad)

The CHP building whose sign is visible in the top left corner is the one you pass on the left when heading south on 880. It is across the freeway from Pacific Commons.

Cows make for pretty effective growth control. You'll see them frequently on hillsides on both sides of the bay acting as a natural fire retardant. Decades ago, the irrepressible Charles O. Finley had goats manicure the grass at KC Muni. As part of the Pacific Commons wetlands preservation and restoration project, maintenance has to be kept up on some of the grassy areas of the tidal marsh. Enter a non-native species to take care of the growth. The cows seem to like hanging out closer to the freeway. This is probably due to taller grasses the further inland one goes.

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In the comments thread of another post, James asked about the wetlands area and whether it would be developed to any degree. To that end I refer you to the following links from Wetland Tracker:

• Pacific Commons Wetlands Project Map
• Ecosystem Restoration Plan
  

The map contains the development map and historical detail, including mentions of the old Sky Sailing Airport and an abandoned drive-in theater. A 390-acre preserve has been created, and a 49-acre park is planned. That park is near the location of a planned Amtrak/ACE station.

Here's a map of the project site, divided into the development parcel and the preserve.

The yellow area is considered the development area. Any other white area has already been developed. The gray area is the preserve. The green area is a bit of a question mark. Informal calculation of the yellow area has it sized at around 120-130 acres, while the green area (if included) adds 35 more. I'll need to verify this with the city and county. The green area has been cleared out and flattened, so at least it looks like it's waiting for something to be built on it.

I intentionally left "existing landfill" in the cropped map. FYI, it has not smelled any time I have gone into the Pacific Commons area. That's at least a couple dozen times over the past year.

If the green area is truly part of the development area, it's where I think the ballpark should go. Here's why:

• 35 acres is sufficient for the immediate ballpark village area, which would include the stadium, museum, hotel, and premium/priority parking.
• The parcel would as a buffer between the residential area and the preserve.
• The area is the closest usable point to the planned Amtrak/ACE station, slightly under a mile away.
  
• Depending on the types of buildings erected, a view to the outfield could have a mini-city of towers framed by Mission Peak and the surrounding hills.
• Traffic can be routed along Cushing Parkway, which would help prevent fans from invading the parking lots of the big box stores. Traffic from the north could run through the Auto Mall (dealers will love the traffic), and traffic from the south would reach the area directly from Cushing.
  

By planning in this manner, residential buildings could be placed in the northeastern corner (the yellow area that juts out to the left). There's room there for 1000-2000 units based on typical densities. That would leave almost 100 acres remaining for other commercial development and parking. Want to build a Santana Row/Bay Street type of development between the ballpark and the residential area? No problem. Does Cisco want to build a set of signature towers in the outfield? Sure thing. Even with the negotiations that will most certainly have to commence with the change in development plans, there are ways to mitigate impacts that benefit the public, the wetlands, and the developers.

Which gets me to the last topic tonight. James also asked about trails or beautification that would occur at the existing wetlands, which would be beautiful except for the landfills and salt ponds that currently take up much of the area. As you may already know, many of the salt ponds are being reclaimed as part of the SFO runway extension deal. Cargill sold much of their salt ponds to the government, which in turn is starting the transformation of salt ponds back into wetlands. The Alviso portion of the project abuts the southern tip of the Pacific Commons area. As the project moves forward, one of the goals is to complete the Bay Trail, the network of trails and paths that will ring the bay.

Currently there are a number of disjointed and often difficult-to-access trails of varying shape. The double-orange line shows an unimproved trail. The gray dotted lines show planned trails. Red lines are existing trails or bike paths. Station Island, which is also known by the name Drawbridge, once had inhabitants and a thriving frontier town economy, but with the changes made by the creation of the salt ponds, eventually started to sink into the bay. Now it's no longer safe to walk on the islands (believe me, I know this firsthand) even though Amtrak/ACE/Union Pacific trains run through it on an elevated track everyday. The first step is to replenish the wetlands. Afterwards, we can talk trails. While there may be a park buffer between the developed area and the wetlands, it'll be a thin sliver compared to the thousands of acres of wetlands.

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I'm a bit afraid that the picture of cattle at the top will cause people to deride Fremont as a cowtown, a la Sacramento. Is that better or worse than being called a bedroom community?

San Jose: Wolff throws in the towel

When I posted a few weeks ago on Lew Wolff's SJ Chamber talk, I discussed the possibility that he may once and for all eliminate Downtown San Jose from all future discussions. On Wednesday, Wolff finally made it official. Rumors of this were present as early as six months ago, but I wanted to see something official first.

Barry Witt's article in the Merc sheds light on a few new items that fill in the gaps quite a bit:

• Wolff tried to broker deals to get the rights to Santa Clara County, but Giants ownership was unwilling to give them up.
• He tried even before he had become managing partner.

This is certainly different from Wolff's "We're focusing on Oakland" stance of April 2005, when he took control of the team. Then again, it's consistent with his statements that he wouldn't challenge the Giants' rights. It's possible that discussions over territorial rights date back to when Wolff was given the VP of Venue Development title.

Chris De Benedetti's wrap-up of the event has a more East Bay-tinged flavor and includes quotes from Fremont City Manager Fred Diaz, Oakland City Council member Larry Reid, and Mike Healy, spokesman for Oakland mayor-elect Ron Dellums.

There have been clues that pointed to this. Chief among them is #1 San Jose backer Mark Purdy's change from Fremont as a negotiating ploy to Fremont as the best alternative given the circumstances. This didn't happen overnight. Purdy's newest article sounds like a sales pitch to the many Baseball San Jose supporters who need to be convinced to support the Fremont ballpark - it won't work financially unless their corporate dollars buy those suites, ads, and club seats.

Purdy dives further into the rumor mill with the following:

"There are plenty of murmurs in Silicon Valley circles that Cisco is smitten with the idea of a partnership with the A's, on many levels -- including naming rights to the ballpark. There are rumblings out of Cisco's offices that concepts for a 'ballpark of the future' have already been brainstormed and game-planned. The project allegedly has support from the highest levels, including CEO John Chambers."

Even though I'm a nerd who works in high tech, I hope "ballpark of the future" doesn't lend itself to dehumanizing the game. All I want is for AM radio reception to work in the ballpark.

I was supposed to attend the event this morning but had to attend to some personal matters. Jay Hipps from Soccer Silicon Valley has audio from the event if you're interested. There is some news from the soccer/Quakes front as well.