Reed, Council to shape ballpark discussions

Tuesday night will mark yet another procedural step in San Jose's effort to lure the A's, as they will push forward again with rules for working with MLB, the A's, and affected communities. More interesting is what the Mayor and City Council are saying, which is what Denis C. Theriault picks up in his article today.

The council Tuesday also will take up its most comprehensive plans yet for ensuring that business owners and other residents remain part of the city's evolving ballpark conversation. The mayor's previously announced "Diridon Station Area Good Neighbor Committee," citywide town hall meetings and frank chats with neighborhood leaders are part of the prescription.

The Diridon committee would include 27 members, including transit officials, neighborhood leaders and representatives from the group that runs HP Pavilion and from nearby businesses such as Adobe Systems. Its work could start as soon as June, Reed said, with a review of the 2007 report clearing use of the Diridon area for a stadium.

I'm a little wary of having 27 members in this committee, but at least no one will be able to say they are being underrepresented. Perhaps it takes a village to build a ballpark.

Mayor Reed also indicates that he wants the project to make money for San Jose, but doesn't indicate how. The model I drew up in the last post indicates that San Jose wouldn't make money. They could through a more expensive lease. More likely is some kind of revenue sharing agreement, especially if it involves the redevelopment zone just created out of the Diridon/Arena area.

Credit goes to the Mayor/Council for being steadfast on looking for a public vote. Even if it is only advisory, at least it goes to the point of directly asking citizens if it's a good deal. I'm not for ballot box planning, especially if no public money is going towards the ballpark itself. However, with the Mayor's promises of open government, this is an appropriate step.

Blueprint for a deal

While I've mentioned the Quakes' stadium deal from time to time, I haven't really gone in depth as to how the deal works. Now's as good a time as any, since the Quakes deal provides some excellent clues into how a San Jose-A's deal might be structured.

66 of the 75 acres were sold to the Quakes for $89 million, a cost of $1.35 million per acre or $31 per square foot. The remaining 9 acres will be sold to VTA for the BART Extension, as there are plans for a train yard there. Within the 66 acres for the Quakes, 13.5 have been set aside for the stadium.

The idea is for the Quakes to build the stadium, funding the construction on its own. Once completed, the Quakes would donate the stadium to San Jose. In doing this, they would avoid paying property taxes on the stadium, which could amount to $500k per year or more. The "donation" could also provide additional tax breaks for ownership, though I'm not clear on what those would be.

San Jose would own the stadium, the Quakes would own the land. Next, they would set up leases with each other which would probably have a counterbalancing or zero net effect. The business arrangement is the opposite of the Giants-San Francisco deal, in which the Giants owned the stadium and the City owned the land. This is important because the Giants currently pay a sizable property tax bill in the neighborhood of $2 million per year (on top of their AT&T Park mortgage and the ground lease with the Port of SF). Don't feel too bad for the Giants, though, all of these expenses translate into a $6 million reduction in their annual revenue sharing payment (it's probably more when other stadium expenses are accounted for).

For the A's, $2 million a year in property taxes is nothing to sneeze at. It would be much higher if they owned the stadium in San Jose, since a ballpark will run $500 million to build, resulting in a $5 million bill. Surely, longtime ballpark proponent and County Assessor Larry Stone would be willing to reassess the ballpark at a lower value, but the A's would still be out a few million a year. The avoidance of property taxes would be an integral part of the deal wherever it is built (SJ, Oakland, Fremont, etc.). Why? Let's say the A's go out into the market for a $300 million loan for the ballpark. Their interest rate is guaranteed to be 1 full point higher than a comparable loan/bond issue for a public entity such as a city or county. That 1% translates to $2.5 million per year, the same amount as the forgone property taxes.

If we were to apply the principles of the Quakes-SJ deal to the A's at Diridon South, it might look like this:

• San Jose completes acquisition of all Diridon South land for ~$60 million.
• In the deal, the ballpark land only is sold to the A's for the same amount, $60 million. That translates to $600k in annual property taxes.
• The A's build the stadium for $500 million, then donate it to the City.
• A triple net stadium lease is arranged which covers basic operations costs (insurance, utilities, police and traffic management). That could be worth $4-5 million a year and would escalate annually. The A's would also be charged with paying into some sort of capital improvements fund.
  
• City leases the land from the A's for the stadium for a nominal amount. This would not completely offset the stadium lease. I'm guessing it'd be around $1 million a year, similar to the Giants-Port of SF arrangement.
  
• City applies part of the $60 million towards the PG&E substation relocation and the creation of a park on the fire training site (I hope). The rest of the money goes towards other RDA projects or acquisitions.
• SVS+E operates stadium on behalf of the A's. The two parties split concessions and parking revenue.
  
• The San Jose Arena Authority would provide oversight, as it already does for HP Pavilion, Municipal Stadium, Sharks Ice, and in all likelihood, the new Quakes stadium.
  
• (An alternative would have the City simply lease the land to the A's, which could run another $2 million a year instead of the upfront $70 million.)
  

The net annual outlay for the A's would be $3-5 million, plus the amount paid into the capital improvements fund. These costs would be the same whether the ballpark were publicly or privately owned. In this scenario, the ballpark itself would not be a net revenue generator for the City. However, they could get significant tax increment from the defined TIF zone, and the ballpark would undoubtedly be good for downtown businesses.

Sidebar: A comment in a previous thread asked about the exclusion of the ballpark site from the newly designated TIF zone. I think this is because, as the deal is constructed above, there would be no tax increment to collect. If the land and stadium were City owned they'd be exempt from property taxes. If the land were owned by the A's the stadium would exempt, but the land would also be frozen in its assessment because the improvements to the land, from which tax increment is derived, would all be tied up in the stadium. Either way, there's no point in adding them to the zone when they wouldn't generate significant TIF revenue.

Saperstein's other letter

Zennie Abraham just posted a second letter from A's minority partner Guy Saperstein. This time, the message was addressed to Senator Barbara Boxer. He posted it in its entirety, and so will I. The tone is markedly different from the public rebuttal to John Russo.

April 2, 2009
Senator Barbara Boxer
1700 Montgomery St. Suite 240
San Francisco, CA 94111

Dear Barbara:

As you know, Jeanine and I have long supported you and we plan to continue doing so. However, we were very disappointed about the letter you sent to Commissioner Selig. I realize you have a lot on your plate in the United States Senate, but if you are going to weigh in with such resolute conclusions about the A's, I wish you had made a greater effort to determine the facts. You made no inquiries to the Oakland Athletics about efforts they have made to find a stadium site in Oakland and your letter cites almost no relevant facts. Doug has known for a long time that I am part of the Wolff ownership group, so if you didn't want to call the A's directly, you easily could have called me with your concerns. Perhaps after hearing more of the facts, you would have offered a more balanced assessment to the Commissioner.

Your letter cites some of the past history of the A's in Oakland, but it glosses over and ignores many important facts. It is true the A's had great baseball teams in the 1970s---experts say some of the best teams in baseball history---but you neglect to mention how Oakland fans responded to these great teams. Not very well. These teams drew less than a million fans per year and that number dwindled to 306,000 in 1979. The A's couldn't even sell out the World Series! I remember this because I could walk up on the day of each game and buy a ticket. I'm willing to bet this never has happened before or since in MLB history in any other city. The second thing that should be noted about 1970s is that it preceded free agency. Thus, the A's owner, Charles Finley, didn't have to compete with other teams for players by paying them competitive salaries; they were bound to the team by the so-called "reserve clause." Because of this form of indentured servitude, even small-market teams like Oakland could remain competitive for years. Today, with free agency, the economics of baseball are fundamentally different and small-market teams have fundamentally different challenges.

Your letter also cites the Haas Family era, another period of excellent teams, and even good attendance. But you neglect to note that the Haas' were losing $10-$15 million per year with those teams in an effort to pay competitive salaries. They were a winning, attractive team which paid big salaries to big stars, but that was because the Haas family was willing to lose millions every year. While we can all thank the Haas family for their beneficence, their model of ownership was and is unsustainable and you cannot expect the Wolff ownership, or any ownership, to operate as a community sports charity.

Not only do the A's draw far fewer fans than the Giants, but the A's average ticket price paid is one of the lowest in MLB---approximately half of what Giants fans pay for tickets. The A's have 8,000 full and partial season ticket holders, compared to the Giants' 24,000 full season ticket-holders. This is even worse than it appears, because when you rely mainly on game-day walk-up sales, you never know how fans are going to show up that day and, consequently, you don't know how many vendors to hire, ticket takers, food workers, etc. So you overstaff and overpay, due to uncertainty. By contrast, if you are the Giants and know that 35,000 fans are going to attend every game, you staff properly. Added to these major economic disadvantages, the A's income from the sale of luxury boxes is one of the lowest in MLB and just a small fraction of what Giants fans pay. This is largely the product of the unpleasant but inescapable fact that Oakland lacks a vibrant business community. When you add all this up, it would be hard to find any MLB owner who would characterize this as strong fan support.

Let me present a few more relevant facts---facts that any ownership must contend with. When Charles Finley brought the A's to Oakland from Kansas City, Oakland had a population of 367,000 [1960 census] and San Jose a population of 204,000. Forty-one years later, San Jose's population is 989,000---now the 10th largest city in America---and Oakland's is 401,000. Which is the more vibrant, growing city? And, while you are promoting Oakland as the only possible site of a new stadium, please note that only 19% of A's fans come from Oakland.

As currently situated, the San Francisco Giants control 2/3 of the Bay Area market and are located just 12 miles away from the A's. If the new baseball stadium were to be built in Oakland, it would replicate this imbalance; if it were built in San Jose, 50 miles away from the Giants stadium, the market imbalance would be adjusted and the A's could be more competitive.

While it is easy to scapegoat the A's for the ills of Oakland, a fairer assessment of what ails Oakland would start with its inept political leadership---some of whom you prominently endorsed, supported and rarely criticize. Without naming names, let me recall just a few more salient facts.

The long-range planning and leadership of the Oakland Coliseum Authority has been almost non-existent. This group made mistakes of judgment which would be almost beyond imagination except for the fact that they actually happened. They spent $140 million to build Mount Davis at the Oakland Coliseum, then entered into a contract which not only costs the taxpayers of Oakland nearly $20 million per year, but which term is only ten years. So, ten years later, Al Davis and the Raiders are whining about a new stadium---which, predictably, they want the taxpayers to pay for. And what do the taxpayers of Oakland get for this almost unbelievable beneficence? Eight home games a year! Then the Coliseum Authority dropped $100+ million into the laps of the Golden State Warriors, who also play far fewer games than the A's and have far less economic impacts on the city. Along came the Oakland A's in 2005, under its new ownership, and in recognition that the A's were playing in what is basically a football stadium, and now a decrepit one at that, and requested that the Coliseum Authority split the cost for a $500,000 feasibility study for a new stadium. The Coliseum Authority couldn't even scrape together $250,000 to try to keep its biggest asset! The Authority has allowed the Raiders and Warriors to bankrupt it and there is nothing left for the A's, despite the fact that the A's, unlike the Raiders, Warriors and 49'ers, always have been willing to pay for building their own stadium. To put it another way, the A's may be the only sports franchise left in the Bay Area, and perhaps America, willing to pay for their own stadium, but the Coliseum Authority hasn't lifted a finger to help the A's and now politicians like you and Doug [and there probably will be others] are quick to pillory the A's for even thinking of moving.

Nor has the Oakland political structure helped. Despite the many business reasons to move to San Jose, the A's explored all options to stay in Oakland. Lew and the A's can give you the full picture if and when you want to hear it, but I can tell you I have been involved since Day One and when Lew first asked me to become part of the ownership, I said I would love to do it, but I didn't want to be part of an ownership which just bought and moved the team. Lew assured me that he would make a full effort to stay in Oakland and I don't think he and his son, Keith, have left a single stone unturned in their efforts to make Oakland work for the A's. I recall specifically Lew proposing to build a 3,000+ unit housing project and several hundred thousand feet of retail space near the Coliseum and taking the profits from this development to finance a stadium at little or no cost to the taxpayers of Oakland. This would have been the biggest economic development in Oakland since Liberty ships were built during World War II, but the only Oakland City Council Member who showed any enthusiasm was Larry Reid. Give Larry a call and ask him why no one else got behind this plan. And in case anyone might suggest forward thinking and planning was not possible, while Oakland was doing nothing, San Jose bought land in downtown and put together a 50-acre parcel, zoned it for a sports stadium and completed an Environmental Impact Report for the stadium. If they want a baseball team, they are ready for it. You were elected to represent all the cities and citizens of California, not act as surrogate Mayor of Oakland. You have a responsibility to try to determine what is best for the state, for the Bay Area, and, yes, for Oakland AND San Jose. Your letter to the Commissioner plays into the hands of the San Francisco Giants, who have long contended the Bay Area is a one-team region and whose game plan is nothing less than driving the A's out of the Bay Area. I think you need to rethink your strategy and begin by making sure the A's are able to stay in the Bay Area.

Like you and Doug, I find it convenient to have a team located 20 minutes from my house and, like you, I will be inconvenienced if the A's move to San Jose. But should an investment of half a billion dollars for a new stadium to meet the needs of present and future Bay Area baseball fans be based on your, my and/or Doug's convenience or on a sound economic foundation? I think the answer is obvious and I hope you will begin to review the facts and evidence before making more pronouncements which operate to undermine the A's opportunities to build a sustainable future.

Lastly, despite serious reservations about the ability of Oakland to provide help in the quest for a new stadium, Lew and I will be meeting with Mayor Dellums in two weeks in an effort to make certain that we have not overlooked any viable site. And, of course, Lew, Keith and I remain available at any time to provide you with additional information about all options.

Best Regards,
Guy T. Saperstein GTS/ht

The immediate observation to be made is that this is the first time anyone from the ownership group has come close to "connecting the dots" regarding the A's and San Jose. Maybe that was intentional, maybe not. I'm surprised to be reading it. I thought San Jose was like Fight Club. For those who still don't think San Jose's the next step I have to ask, Really? Come on, now.

Next up is the issue of the feasibility study the A's asked for when Wolff took over. According to Saperstein, the $500k cost was to be split between the two parties, but the Coliseum Authority was too tapped out to help. All the while the Authority was finalizing the deal to get rid of Raider PSL's forever and hiring multiple consultants to get a naming rights deal for the Arena. If this feasibility study assertion is true, you can be sure that it will end up in the Blue Ribbon report.

What I don't get is Zennie's response. He rants about Saperstein's pointing out the 70's attendance woes. It's no secret that the A's weren't a big draw then, just as they aren't now. The facts are these:

• The A's averaged 764,660 per season during the decade
• The A's were as high as 5th in AL attendance once (1972)
• The A's topped 1 million twice during the era
• The A's were last in AL attendance twice and second-to-last twice
  
• Average annual attendance for all AL teams during the 70's was 1,194,395

When your biggest argument is semantic, you don't have much of an argument.

I'm also not sure what Saperstein has to apologize to the Haas family about. Nothing he wrote denigrated Wally Haas. He held up Haas as a paragon to which no future ownership group can be favorably compared. At the same time, yes, Haas was losing money. That can't be disputed. Why so sensitive then?

Now, there are things to quibble about. Russo mentioned in his letter that the Coliseum North proposal would've required eminent domain, which is right. Wolff was willing to pay no more than $1 million an acre, a ludicrous amount at the time. When the plan collapsed, Wolff then resubmitted Schott's old Coliseum parking lot plan, in which the A's would contribute $100 million. Does anyone remember that?

One of the big keys for any political campaign, even the kind we're witnessing here, is message discipline. It doesn't matter if you're Karl Rove or David Axelrod, Doug Boxer or Lew Wolff. I sense a serious lack of message discipline on both fronts, and it isn't very becoming for either side.

Zennie and I agree

Before you check out Zennie Abraham's newest contribution to the his SFGate blog, let me warn you that both the text form and his vlog are lo-o-o-o-ong. Have a seat. Maybe get a beverage.

Zennie comes out guns blazing on everyone, from Mayor Dellums to A's ownership. Interestingly, he reveals a couple of things that sound absolutely terrible from Oakland's perspective. One, there are four - count 'em, four - groups working on the ballpark issue. Zoinks!

So it's that wealth of experience at seeing Oakland stumble all over itself with secret meetings between people who think they know when they can't even crunch fiscal data let alone craft a decent set of planning scenarios that's got me riled up. And it's the fact that we have as of this writing four committees and groups - The Oakland Mayor's Sports and Entertainment Task Force, Doug Boxer's MLB Task Force, and the Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce's Land Use Committee, and the Oakland Alameda County Joint Powers Authority - looking at the A's stadium issue and yet never having met as one to talk about this matter and trade information in the objective of presenting a united front that really has been the last straw for me.

Two, Zennie quit the Mayor's Sports and Entertainment Task Force last week. Zennie asks, "Would you believe...?" and all I can say is "Yes, I believe it." I'm not surprised. I don't think any A's fan or Oakland observer is surprised. I don't have to touch on the litany of missteps, the situation is practically self-evident.

I ended an interview with a reporter earlier this week with an opinion I've been wanting to get off my chest for a while: Owning a major league team, and having it in your city, are privileges, not rights. It is incumbent upon both parties to approach any negotiations with that attitude. No matter how long you've owned a team (Marge Schott) or held it in your city (Brooklyn), the fates can be cruel and your privilege can be taken away in an instant. If both parties treated the team as something more than a possession to argue over, more progress could be made.

It can be argued that Wolff/Fisher can treat the team as a possession since, well, they bought the team. Still, owners have a social contract with fans that goes beyond tickets, television, and promotions. There is an unspoken bond between the owners, team, and fans. All have a shared responsibility to protect and grow the franchise. That stewardship begins at the top.

The city, on the other hand, has a much more tenuous grip on the team. It may have a lease agreement as the only legal bond. It also has a responsibility to uphold the relationship with the team. If the city is looking to provide a stadium solution, it behooves them to put aside the political oneupsmanship and games, in order to work together to reach that common goal. This is where Zennie and I are on the same page. The fact that one of Oakland's staunchest advocates quit over his frustration with the process is perhaps the most disheartening development I've heard yet. Zennie's more a numbers guy than a work-the-channels type, so I'm not going to oversell his value. Regardless, it's anything but good, and smacks of running to the lifeboats.

I'll end this post with a quote from the 99-year young John Wooden, the Wizard of Westwood:

Never mistake activity for achievement.

(placing palm on face now)

AN Wolff interview

Blez interviews Lew Wolff. No excerpts this time, read and comment there. Or here if you like. It's long and almost all stadium.

Jingletown Stadium @ Fruitvale

Faithful New Ballpark readers: Marine Layer made the very foolish decision to let me, Chris Kidd, stand in for him for this post. I come, hat in hand, to offer you something you all thought you would never see. It is a favorite sticking point for San Jose partisans (and something in Oakland which we prefer to ignore) that none of the proposed sites in Oakland have a level of preparedness equal to Diridon. There's no EIR, they say. The needed infrastructure improvements are too great, they insist. Well, I believe I might have found a site in Oakland that will not only have both of those issues fully addressed within 18 months, but it will be done without costing the Oakland A's ownership a single penny (and if I might editorialize for a moment: In your face).

What is even more amazing is this site is far superior to both of the rehashed waterfront sites so far proposed in Oakland, specifically the site at Oak to 9th and the site at the Howard Terminal in the port of Oakland. Far superior. Have I whetted your appetite enough yet? Can you not stand the suspense anymore? Well, wait no longer: the site I'm talking about is on the Oakland Estuary at the base of the Fruitvale Avenue Bridge. A site I like to call Jingletown Stadium.

So, let's first talk about the site itself. It's 26 acres currently inhabited by the Owens Brockway Glass Container company. It is bounded by Fruitvale Ave to the north/west, Alameda Ave to the south/west, Home Depot to the south/east, and Boehmer and Elmwood Ave's to the north/east. I call it “Jingletown Stadium” because the site is across the street from the vibrant artist community of Jingletown (photo blog).

Now, let's compare this site with the two other Oakland waterfront sites: Oak to 9th and the Howard Terminal. When comparing sites, there are some yardsticks to go by: the size of the parcel(s), the ease of acquiring said parcel(s) and dealing with the displacement of the current occupants, the current infrastructure, the current public transit options, and the feasibility of adding infrastructure and parking.

Let's go point by point, though I'm going to save a little bit for dessert.

• Size of Parcel: Jingletown Stadium is 26 acres, compared to 029's 40 acres and Howard Terminal's 46 acres.
• Acquisition: Though 029 would be the easiest parcel to acquire, the A's would be taking on a ginormous NIMBY fight that has stalled out the development of 029 to this day. You don't want that. Howard Terminal is equally squishy: the port of Oakland just signed a 25 year contract with Matson Shipping and they would be required to relocate them to an equally large site for their exclusive operation. Space like that on the waterfront is neither easily attained nor is it cheap. While Jingletown Stadium would need to relocate the glass factory to elsewhere in Oakland, this is a much easier prospect than moving Matson Shipping. Oakland currently has an over-abundance of available industrial space, and finding another site for them to inhabit should not be difficult. One solution I particularly love is to put them on the Oakland Army Base. It offers the same proximity to a major freeway and the city would be able to offer them the land for free as incentive. Additionally, it would remove a large industrial polluter to an area of the city that isn't nearly as densely populated. But I digress...
• Infrastructure: To put it succinctly, they suck for the other two sites. The Howard Terminal is near only 1 freeway exit southbound and 2 exits northbound. 029 doesn't fare much better with 2 exits northbound and 1 exit southbound. Compare that with Jingletown Junction having 3 exits reasonably close southbound (23rd, Fruitvale & High) and 2 northbound (High & 29th/Fruitvale).
• Public transit: Here's where Jingletown Stadium cleans the clocks of the other two sites. Fruitvale BART is only a third of a mile away from Jingletown Stadium. Even better, Fruitvale BART is a regional hub for AC Transit. 029 is over a mile from Lake Merritt BART and Howard Terminal would require an infill station for BART. Screw that mess.
  

So, you guys have had to slog through quite a bit of article so far, but are you ready for dessert? I saved the best part for last, contained in the question of feasibility for upgrading infrastructure and parking. This is the lynchpin for what makes Jingletown Stadium far superior to all other sites in Oakland: The Central Estuary Specific Plan. Now, I could go through a whole explanation about what the Central Estuary Specific Plan is, or I could use the wonder that is The Internets and show you. I wrote some guest articles about the CESP for Vsmoothe's phenomenal blog A Better Oakland. They're here, here, and here. You can also read more by my blogger-crush DJ Crimson at his blog Oakland Streets here and here.

If you're link-averse, I'll spare you the work and give you the quick and dirty right here. The city is developing a “specific plan” for the area of Oakland's waterfront bound by 19th Ave, 54th Ave, 880 and the estuary. An EIR is created which will cover the entire specific plan area, and developers who want to build anything that is contained within the range of this EIR can use it to gain approval to build instead of having to create their own. The process for the approved types of new development will have a much faster time getting approval and getting construction started. For the significant amount of time and money saved by the developer using this EIR, they have to pay a “user fee” which will only be used within the specific plan area. These fees will do things like build sidewalks, create open space, modernize the sewer system, underground utilities, etc.

This is where the A's come in. If the staff drafting the specific plan include a stadium plan within the EIR, it's conceivable that the A's could use it for the stadium. What's more, the pretty hefty user fee the specific plan area would extract from the A's could go towards all the types of infrastructural improvements that the A's would need at a new stadium. Streets can be reconfigured, freeway exits can be modified. The area around Jingletown Stadium is still relatively underdeveloped: it can accommodate a lot of the upgrades needed to the roads and there are many underdeveloped lots that could serve as additional off-site parking to make up for the insufficient amount of space the 26 acres of Jingletown Stadium would provide for parking.

Plus, I bet Jingletown Stadium would have some mean burritos.

---

Editor's notes:
Like any site, Jingletown has its positives and negatives. I don't have any familiarity with this area other than driving through there several years ago while looking for waterfront sites.

• Of the 26 acres, half would be devoted to the ballpark and the other half to parking in all likelihood. That translates to about 1,600 on-site spaces if only a surface lot were built to save costs. That could grow to 3,000 (two levels) or 4,500 (three levels) if a garage were built, but someone would have to foot the bill for that. The more parking is immediately available, the greater traffic impact. 10,000 spaces for any ballpark would be for any site, regardless of the site's proximity to transit. A worst case scenario has to be assumed to properly identify problems and create mitigation plans.
  
• A 2002 report by environmental watchdog site Scorecard indicates that the Owens Brockway plant has a less than glowing report card in terms of toxic chemical/waste generation. If the site were acquired, it's likely that some amount of site cleanup would be required. The flipside is that wherever the plant is moved, it's possible that a cleaner replacement could be built. Owens Brockway's parent company is one of the largest glass container manufacturers in the world.
  
• If Owens Brockway isn't interested in selling, the plan is dead in the water. Unlike the other two waterfront sites, this one is privately owned. As usual, eminent domain is assumed to be out of the question.
• The picture intentionally orients the field east instead of creating a "Splash Hit" situation. A street acts as a buffer between the ballpark site and the waterfront.
• Impact to Alameda is unknown, which means NIMBY reaction to such a concept is unknown.
  

Discuss.

Quakes get land discount + TIF approved for Diridon/Arena area

Following up on an item from last month, San Jose's Redevelopment Agency (City Council wearing different hats) unanimously approved the price cut for the Airport West site, from $132 million to $89 million. The land will be used for the Quakes' new stadium, plus some future commercial development. The discounted price is $8 million more than what the City paid in 2005.

On a more A's-related note, SJRA also approved creating a tax increment zone just north of the Diridon South ballpark site. The area includes Diridon Station and the 8 blocks between HP Pavilion and the ballpark site, with Guadalupe Parkway/CA-87 on the east border. Virtually all of this area is zoned either industrial or commercial. At least one site, the old SJ Water Company land bought by Adobe, has development plans underway.

TIF funds could be used for the new infrastructure stuff we've discussed previously, from the new multimodal transit hub to additional parking to open space. It's hard to say what yields they are expecting, but it stands to reason that whatever gets built, TIF will be stretched out enough for the corresponding projects to be paid for.

Tying the two news items together, it'll be interesting to see how quickly construction begins on the Quakes stadium. As I understand it, the land there is already graded and ready to build. Should a new stadium have it groundbreaking in the summer or fall with visible progress over the next several months, it would be a major achievement politically for the City and A's/Quakes ownership. It's expected that the ballpark will have its own ballot measure, and there's no better political capital than showing that you're getting something done - with your own money, nonetheless.

Minority partner Saperstein fires back at Russo

While I would just as soon prefer the A's saga not get played out so publicly in the media, it makes sense for members of the ownership group to circle the wagons when they get attacked. And so minority partner Guy Saperstein wrote into the Trib with a strongly worded rebuttal of City Attorney John Russo's letter last week. Saperstein, a retired Oakland lawyer who contributes to several left-leaning websites, doesn't quite fit the profile of collusive carpetbagger many have bestowed upon Lew Wolff. I will be curious to see if, oh, Zennie Abraham and Rich Lieberman devote as much blog space to Saperstein's letter as to Russo's.

Saperstein ends with a sentiment echoed by this blogger and many others (though not all) throughout A's fandom:

What is most noteworthy about Russo's commentary is what it fails to identify: A single viable stadium site in Oakland. Russo writes a long commentary claiming that "feasible options for a new ballpark" exist, and that it only takes "imagination" to find it, then fails to identify a single feasible option, or indeed, any stadium option.

The time is long past for platitudes and empty rhetoric from grandstanding politicians who aspire to be the next mayor. If you have a secret stadium site and plan that no one else has yet seen, Mr. Russo, let's see it.

The key word there, of course, is viable. I guess we'll find out if it exists in a week. Can't wait.

On a related note - how many more lawyers are we going to hear from? I'll put the over-under at 3.

Everything old is new again

Matier and Ross report that there may be three locations presented by the Oakland Stadium Task Force. One is the Coliseum parking lot option, the other two unclear, though M&R are pointing to Howard Terminal and Oak-to-Ninth. Yes, this is all familiar territory.

Quick refresher: Howard Terminal (aerial view) was reopened in 2004, with shipping giant Matson signing a 25-year lease. A related deal, finalized only last year, has SSA Marine operating the terminal on behalf of Matson.

O29 is a bit more complicated. The largely residential development on the Estuary had its EIR certified in January (PDF), after 3+ years of legal wrangling. Unfortunately for developer Signature Properties, the timing coincides with a horrible decline in the housing market. The Ghielmettis have long maintained that they would be willing to share the site with the A's for a ballpark. However, the devil is always in the details. If putting a ballpark in means a significant drop in open space (which was what much of the legal wrangling was about), any plan would be likely be DOA, if not beset by renewed lawsuits.

Both sites would require new EIR processes to begin, as is common with new development.

At least the task force is aware that it can't just throw a couple of sites out there:

Planning Commissioner Doug Boxer, who is part of a public-private group led by Mayor Ron Dellums working to keep the A's in town, confirmed that part of the parking lot at the Coliseum would be offered as a ballpark site. But he said there has been no final decision on which two waterfront sites will be presented to the baseball poobahs May 12.

"We don't want to provide them with the same old sites that are going to have some of the same issues that have been identified as problematic," he said.

In other words, they're still sorting it out.

When the HOK study was completed in 2002, Howard Terminal and O29 emerged 4th and 6th, respectively.

I'd love to be a fly on the wall at the task force's presentation, which is scheduled for May 12th.

P.S.: Rich Lieberman comments further on the M&R report, though he must not have gotten the memo that the Marlins' ballpark plan has been approved, not killed. Miami-Dade County expects to sell the bonds in the next two months. The site has been cleared, the Marlins planted flags there over the weekend, and a very detailed site plan has already been circulated (thanks Transic and M Festa). The constant drone I've been hearing from Oakland partisans is "It's too hard to go anywhere else, just get it done here even though the potential isn't as good." It somewhat fits with the path of least resistance M.O. I ascribed to Wolff in the past. I understand the reasoning behind this, but it's not exactly an overwhelming sales pitch.

No A's/High Speed Rail conflict, say planners

Years ago, when the High Speed Rail project was only slightly more than a pipe dream, I had a dream of my own. It involved a few friends and me going on a quick weekend trip on HSR. We'd pack light, walk from my house, and board an HSR train on a Friday afternoon. Three hours later, we'd be in Anaheim, just in time to catch the first game of a division rivalry weekend series at Angel Stadium. We'd bunk with some other friends in the O.C. We'd reciprocate the hospitality when they wanted to come up here, of course.

This was before the final alignment was decided. Since then, the East Bay has been shut out of the initial phases of HSR, making such a trip from the East Bay less convenient than what I just described (a transfer from BART in SF remains possible). From San Jose, the dream is not only alive, it's within grasp. And according to comments by SJ city planners and HSR planners, it can work for them too.

"Engineering hasn't been done, and decisions haven't been made," said Hans Larsen, San Jose's deputy director of transportation, "but there's nothing to indicate — that we've seen — any chance of a conflict between the two projects."

Added Mehdi Morshed, the rail authority's executive director: "The more activity, the more development, the more things that are located in and around the station, the better it is for our riders. We would go out of our way to work with them, to do everything we can to match our station design to fit the city's priority."

Now that sounds like the spirit of cooperation to me! Each independent working group knows what the others are doing, they appreciate what the other could bring to the table. Hopefully, they're also thinking about sharing infrastructure along the lines of what I suggested last month.

Eventually, HSR could be a boon for all sports teams situated near it. An A's or Giants fan in Fresno could conceivably get to SF or SJ about 90 minutes. A Padres fan who wants to attend a Pads-Dodgers game in LA but doesn't want to deal with LA traffic would have a solution that gets him end-to-end in just over an hour. Baseball fans from all over could join cool train-based ballpark tours, visiting all 5 major league parks as well as several minor league parks along the route if they wanted. The potential is staggering.

San Jose reaches 1 million

It's a development that doesn't really make a difference in putting a ballpark plan together. Still, civic leaders and pols pushing for a ballpark will undoubtedly point to San Jose's newly minted seven-figure population.

Kevin Starr, a professor of history at the University of Southern California and a former state librarian, said 1 million people is a distinct urban threshold.

"When a city reaches a million, it reaches a certain transformative population," Starr said. "You are dense enough then to get anything done that you want to get done. So let those people that don't want San Jose to be a big city move to Redding — seriously. This place was destined to be an important American city right from the beginning."

I don't know if San Jose will ever "arrive" the way Tom McEnery had envisioned in the past. Reaching 1 million is certainly a step towards that. In the meantime, at least San Jose can say it has more tall buildings than San Antonio. Woohoo! - er, um...

The enemy of my enemy is my friend

And so the recriminations begin.

A letter from Oakland City Attorney John Russo gave a Rajon Rondo-on-Brad Miller style slap to Lew Wolff. Zennie Abraham quickly jumped on it, as did Robert Gammon. I'm sure the comments section will be full of people going back and forth yet again on the subject, so I won't bother rehashing history for the umpteenth time.

Abraham somehow managed to bury the lead in his blog post by not acknowledging in text what he said in his vlog - discussions with the A's and the Blue Ribbon Committee are not going well. That development is anything but surprising, given the committee's makeup. Matier and Ross reported on yesterday's meeting between Wolff and Dellums. Fittingly, the meeting was derailed by a planned fire drill, forcing the parties to move the proceedings elsewhere.

Russo isn't going to pen a legal brief on his own, he has orders. He may have done it at the behest of the Mayor or City Council. Abraham speculates that it's a step towards pitting Oakland and the Giants against the A's and MLB. He even trots out old Rule 52, which as I'll explain later, is not applicable these days.

Let's take the confrontation angle first. As noted previously, the Giants don't have a legal option to exercise regarding territorial rights. It's in the ML Agreement, and Maury Brown spelled this out in his reading of the ML Constitution in a 2005 Hardball Times series:

If there are any disputes or controversies between the clubs, or between club(s) and any of MLB’s entities, and if the resolution isn’t expressed elsewhere in the Constitution, the Major League Rules, the Basic Agreement with the MLBPA, or the collective bargaining agreement with the Major League Umpires, the Commissioner serves as the sole arbitrator. (Article VI Sec.1)

What recourse do the Giants have, then? They can try to go to bat for Oakland, even though they have no history of doing that previously. Even though, in moving to China Basin, they've actively siphoned East Bay fans away from the A's. Even though they've held a regional hegemony for decades. It wouldn't be hard to posture themselves as saviors of baseball in Oakland - no matter how strange that sounds - as it wouldn't require much effort and could be done in a sort of stealth mode. It wouldn't be difficult to get a few letters from prominent pols in order, so no problem there either. The best part is for the Giants is that it works. It paints Wolff as a villain and Oakland as a victim, despite the backstory's greater complexity.

Problem is, behind all of the sizzle there isn't much, if any, steak. For Oakland to be successful, there still needs to be an actual ballpark deal in place. The Giants know firsthand what it means to fail to get a stadium built, they've understood it many times over. All of this posturing is fantastic if you're trying to win a war in the media, it's not good for getting anything done. Could the Giants be brazen enough to goad Oakland into a lawsuit against the A's and MLB? The A's and Oakland are only tied together via a lease deal at the Coliseum. As valued as history and tradition are, they are largely intangible. Collusion? R-i-i-i-ght. Does Oakland really want to go down the path of trying to prove that? They're not the only ones with documents.

Would the Giants try to bring Bob Piccinini out of the woodwork to do the same? Ironically, Vincent Piazza sued MLB over the Giants' aborted move to Tampa-St. Pete, and eventually got $6 million to go away. Unlike Piazza's almost immediate action, a move to sue now would likely be beyond any statute of limitations. The fact is that suing to keep a team in town, even if you have a good case, isn't much of a winner. It certainly didn't work for Seattle.

Make no mistake, the Giants aren't taking the T-rights matter lying down. It isn't simply a matter of them being quickly and/or cheaply paid off. They want to defend their territory as vigorously as possible, and I don't blame them. It's really a matter of whether or not their whining will get more than a token acknowledgment as MLB looks towards further stabilizing the league as a whole.

As for Rule 52, even if it were in place (which isn't verifiable at this point), it isn't applicable to an A's move to San Jose. It applies to moves near an established territory, not an invasion of a territory. It would've been applicable to an A's move to Fremont, since either ballpark site was only 5 miles from the Santa Clara County line. Yet, did Peter Magowan raise a big fuss about it? Nope. Contrary to popular belief, it would've been applicable to the Expos' move because portions of DC are within the 15-mile O's territory buffer. Yet while Peter Angelos objected in the end, Rule 52 was nowhere to be found.

How bizarre would a lawsuit look? Oakland, backed by the Giants, would allege collusion between the A's ownership and MLB. The A's would probably counter that the antitrust exemption is keeping them from moving to San Jose. San Jose/Santa Clara County, not the A's, would sue MLB and the Giants, thereby threatening the antitrust exemption. I'm sure that Bud Selig's stockpiled a ton of antacid just in case.

Thinking out of the (sky) box

They are a necessary evil. They make new stadiums possible even as they detract from many fans' experiences. They even go by different aliases. In the U.K. they are often called executive boxes. Here in America they usually go by the term luxury suites. Jon Miller has seen fit to call them condominiums. They used to be called skyboxes, before current stadium and arena architecture started to put them as close to event level as possible. Whatever you want to call them, they aren't going away. The question is, what can we do to make them work better for all fans, not just the suite folks?

Before I get into a solution, a little history is required. During the post-Camden Yards building boom, ballparks were designed to enhance premium revenue generating possibilities. This meant building lots of suites and club seats. In the 90's, architecture firms like HOK (now Populous) experimented with different configurations to accommodate team requirements. For the ChiSox, 2 suite levels sandwiched a club level. In Cleveland, 3 suite levels ran along the third base line while a club seating area was placed on the first base side. However, HOK wasn't alone with its crimes against upper deck fans. NBBJ designed Safeco Field and Miller Park, both of which had conservative seating layouts. Same goes for Ellerbe Becket, whose Chase Field feels like a huge airplane hangar. HKS did the football stadium-like Rangers Ballpark.

By the turn of the millenium, a standard recipe had been found. Teams wanted 40-42,000 seats, 50+ suites, and several thousand club seats. Various other niceties were added in to achieve some sense of uniqueness, but the fundamental recipe was the same. Like a pop song's structure, it wasn't something to be trifled with. The recipe looked like this:

• 40 rows at field level
• 8-12 row club mezzanine
• Suite level either above or below club mezzanine
• Split upper deck containing 24-26 rows above suites, with or without an open concourse
• 35-40 foot concourses

However the mezzanine is sliced up, the club/suite facilities add around 36 feet to the height of the stadium, and more importantly, the upper deck. This also causes the upper deck to be more steep, even though it usually isn't cantilevered much over the lower deck. In these new ballparks, these choices create a more open, sunny environment. Unfortunately, in striking that bargain, intimacy is lost in the process.

Obviously, it isn't possible to lose the suites and club seats. They need to be there, and they need to be attractive to the premium market. That means suites can't be placed above and behind a third deck. They should be reasonably close to the field. Again, how to do this without hurting the upper deck fans?

Bring back the skybox
The great thing about building a 32-35,000 seat stadium is that the layout can be really compact. Each additional row adds about 500 fans. To get from 32k to 40k, 16 extra rows have to be built. That equates to an extra deck from foul pole to foul pole. For now, thankfully, we don't have to worry about that pesky third deck.

In the third deck's place, why not put the luxury suites there? To make them attractive, cantilever them over the second deck. Here's a cross section:

It's a very simple, compact, fan-friendly, intimate layout. An extended club seating area is at field level. Suites are elevated a bit, but they're only 24 rows from the field (Second level is the press box). This placement accomplishes two goals that are seemingly at odds: bring suite holders close to the action while not adversely affecting the upper deck. As you'll see from the next table, both would be closer than their counterparts at any modern ballpark.

The skybox location's distance to home plate is on par with other ballparks whose suites are tucked under a second deck. It's around 30 feet closer than in ballparks whose suites are under a third deck. The best part is that the upper deck in this model is nice and close. Its last row of the upper deck is 173' from home plate. Most recent ballparks have a large, tall, swept back upper deck. The first row is 150' from home plate, last row 250' away.

Having trouble envisioning it? Take a look at these comparisons. First, this model vs. Target Field (AT&T Park is similar):

Next, the model vs. Citi Field (with Shea Stadium as well):

Finally, the model vs. New Yankee Stadium:

The model has one major drawback. Major expansion (8-10,000 seats) would be prohibitively expensive due to the suite level(s) in place. It could be constructed with the flexible seating system I described over the weekend to add up to 2,000 seats as needed. Also, the model shown has both the upper deck and the suites cantilevered. A column could be used, probably to cut costs.

Do you think this is a model the A's should consider? How do you think it stacks up with 360's Cisco Field model?

Expanding from within

Somehow, amidst all of the NBA and NHL playoff games, A's and Giants baseball, and incessant NFL Draft coverage, I managed to carve out an hour of time to satisfy my stadium jones. This was thanks to the Science Channel, whose series, Build it Bigger, covered the construction of the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, TX.

The series gives solid profiles to major engineering and construction projects around the world. Two years ago, one of the subjects was University of Phoenix Stadium, the most similar existing design to what Jerry Jones is building. This week's ep covered all of the major stuff, from the massive roof and arch system to the enormous center-hung video boards and the largest sliding glass doors in the world.

On a smaller albeit similarly impactful scale, a segment was devoted to what I feel is the most innovative thing about the stadium: the seats. Made by Australian manufacturer Camatic, the seating system is notable for the way it's mounted. Most seating manufacturers mount seats directly to concrete risers. Over time, the only major innovations have been the switch from wood to plastic and the places of the mountain standards on the vertical part of the riser to facilitate easier postgame cleaning. Once seats are mounted, they can't be moved or modified except to change out hardware when it breaks. One baseball-specific innovation has been the angling of seats towards a focal point, usually home plate.

Camatic's Quantum series introduces an all new method: seats mounted on a beam. The beam is attached to the riser and seats snap into place along the beam. This allows for incredible flexibility, as seats of varying types and widths can be used, even on the same beam. They can be installed or removed quickly, creating more free space or additional capacity at a moment's notice. Watch the video below to see the system in action.

Here's an example of how this would work for the A's. Let's take a single section of seats, a matrix consisting of 18 rows of 24 19-inch seats. Each row would have to be at least 38 feet wide. To accommodate expansion, each row would be widened to 40 feet, which would allow for those 19-inch seats to take up 20-inch spaces. At the back of the section is an ADA-compliant row containing wheelchair spaces and companion seats.

Now let's consider the possibility of a playoff series or All Star game. As the stadium operator, you're obligated to keep a percentage of wheelchair spaces available for each price range. This time, unlike other stadia, you've designed the space to accommodate either wheelchair spaces or additional spaces easily. The wheelchair spaces are on a portable steel platform that can be removed and stowed out of sight. That would uncover two rows with unused beams. Ops can then bring in seats and mount them in minutes. In addition, those 20-inch seats can be turned into 19-inch seats with space remaining for an additional 25th seat per row.

The change nets an additional 51 seats per section. Projected out, that's 1,000 more seats per level or 2,000 more seats in the ballpark. That means going from 32,000 to 34,000 with little fuss, and with room remaining for standing room admissions.

Camatic, which has experience in the US (Turner Field, Qwest Field), is onto something with its new seating system. If Lew really wants to manage seat capacity and inventory on a similar micro level as he does his hotels, it's hard to ignore what Camatic brings to the table.

Forbes: A's worth $319 million (-$4M)

This year's Forbes valuations are out, and the A's are down 1% from last year, which to me is surprising. I expected a bigger drop due to lower local revenue, but total team revenue actually rose from $154 to $160 million. This season's the big test, as MLB is expected to take a broad hit, including the possibility of lower TV revenues if not redone TV contracts. If a drop in valuation is going to occur, it'll be a year from now.

Bobb for Oakland mayor?

Former Oakland city manager Robert Bobb is doing more than just dipping a toe in city politics. He has expressed interest in the 2010 mayoral race, in which he would be running against Don Perata. It should at least shape up to be an epic race, with both candidates having campaign dollars and established political support at their disposal.

For those who haven't kept up with Bobb's doings since he left Oakland, here's a summary:

• Sept. 2003 - Dec. 2006: City Administrator for the District of Columbia. From all outward appearances, Bobb was brought in mostly to do the DC ballpark deal. Bringing MLB back to the District is no small feat, though it can be argued that the District got ripped off in the process. Regardless, it's a feather in his cap.
• Jan. 2007 - Dec. 2008: DC Board of Education President. I can't comment on his tenure there, read this and this for more details.
• Jan. 2009 - present: Emergency Financial Manager for Detroit Public Schools. Bobb was brought in to make drastic cuts in the school district's budget. This will include closing up to 50 schools.
  
• Bobb's consulting firm has specialized in fixing bad fiscal situations in municipalities. Recently, this included cleaning up the budget mess left by his successor in Oakland, Deborah Edgerly.
  

It's a bit early to predict what could happen ballpark-wise with Bobb, since we still have many steps to go, including the Blue Ribbon committee's report. Should Bobb run and should Oakland elect Bobb, he'd be the guy to get a ballpark deal (site and political wrangling) done.

Previous posts on Robert Bobb:

• Bobb is Back! - Sort of
• This could be from your champion
  

It would be interesting to find out if Bobb's interest in the job would wane if the A's were fated to go to San Jose.

Jet Stream Stadium

If you're a Canadian goose who happens to be a baseball fan, you might enjoy an easy wind-aided jaunt from Yankee Stadium to Citi Field to enjoy literal bird's eye views of the new ballyard palaces. The distance, shortest among crosstown rivalries, is only 6.6 miles. Of course, you might get sucked into a jet engine, but that's another story.

Like most baseball fans, I watched in wonder as the New Yankee Stadium opened and immediately turned into... a hitter's park? Small sample sizes be damned, the place has already recorded 20 home runs in 4 games. With the Oakland Anemics Athletics coming to town, that average will likely drop. Still, it'd be nice for Giambi to rekindle that old short porch aim for this series, and for Holliday to connect down the LF line for his first in an A's uniform.

Green-and-gold performance aside, there are probably hundreds of engineering students and professionals champing at the bit to determine the cause for the Bronx power spike. The Yankees have undoubtedly had their own studies done as well prior to construction, but it's so curious that the ball just flies to right even though the old and new stadiums have the same orientation, and are only several hundred feet apart. Players and coaches are already blaming the phenomenon on prevailing winds, which appear to be a bigger factor in the new digs than the old digs. From an amateur perspective, there's an explanation for the wind problem. It's the Stadium's open layout.

Old Yankee Stadium has a small footprint, and was designed by Osborn Engineering to make the most of very limited space. That meant putting in the massive overhanging upper deck, narrow concourses and ramps, and walls everywhere. New Yankee Stadium was designed by HOK Populous in response to Old Yankee's deficiencies. Where walls once stood, there are now open concourses. All three concourses are open to the field. The upper deck, which is where most winds will come in before swirling around the seating bowl, has two sets of openings. Besides the concourse, the back of the upper deck has the now familiar fence instead of Old Yankee's slits-in-concrete. The upper deck itself is not as steep as before. The roof is more extensive in New Yankee, but it's hard to say how much of an effect it has on the wind as a whole.

Over in Queens, Citi Field has racked up 10 HR's in 6 games. Its new orientation (NE instead of Shea's ENE) and cavernous RF makes Citi Field a pitcher's park more in the mold of PETCO or AT&T than any other East Coast ballpark. Side note: The Mets' roster has no major lefty bats other than Carlos Delgado, who will soon be a free agent.

To understand the big difference between the two parks, I've constructed a quick overlay of New Yankee Stadium's field over Citi Field.

Even without the weird notch (pointless affectation) in Citi's RF, it can nearly envelop New Yankee's field.

I haven't had a chance to see every homer hit at New Yankee so far, but from what I could gather at least 3 landed in the RF first row, including Jorge Posada's controversial pinch hit job earlier today. None of those would've gone out at Citi Field, and it could be argued that Old Yankee would've contained those flies as well. The Yankees claim that New and Old have the same dimensions, so what gives? It'll be some time before we know. One other thing about the environment: In only one of the four games so far has the temperature been above 70 degrees at first pitch.

Historically, teams have averaged a 1 HR/game, with the trend fluttering above 1 during the steroid era. If this trend doesn't settle down during the season, the Yanks will have major problems grooming and signing pitchers. Big parks like Safeco and Comerica had their fences brought in over time, just like Old Yankee Stadium. It's much harder to expand a bandbox. For now, some of us can delight in the horrified looks on the Yankees' brass as they realize their new home has just become Arlington or Denver.

Diridon's Neighbors

Merc reporter Denis C. Theriault just penned an article capturing the state of affairs in and around the San Jose ballpark site. Reaction by neighbors is mixed as would be expected. Some demolition is expected to begin this summer, probably the old Amtrak/Butcher Electric building in the northeast corner, as well as the old KNTV studio. As these buildings are torn down, much needed parking goes up in place. On a weekday, daily parking in one of the area lots is $2-3, event parking $15-20.

One curious quote came from a resident of Delmas Park, the neighborhood between Diridon South and CA-87:

Just ask Chuck Bean, 60, who lives on Gifford Avenue in Delmas Park, where nearly all parking is by permit only — a concession granted after HP Pavilion was erected.

"People will park here anyway, despite the fact that there's a $50 ticket. It doesn't faze them," he said from the house his wife's grandparents bought in 1942.

All the more reason for more parking to be built in the area, in conjunction with additional event use and future transit hub use. Then again, maybe the city is "okay" with the situation since those $50 tickets help San Jose's general fund?

Dellums, IDLF, Reid meet with MLB committee

The first of what promises to be several meetings between the City of Oakland and MLB's "Blue Ribbon" committee took place earlier today. On hand for the City were Mayor Ron Dellums and City Council members Ignacio De La Fuente and Larry Reid. Their counterparts were Bob Starkey, Corey Busch and Irwin Raij.

"It was an excellent meeting," Dellums said afterward. "We've begun an excellent dialogue. We've agreed to meet on a regular basis and our hope is that we will come to some fruition at some point down the line. ... Obviously, on our side, we want to keep the Oakland A's."

Obviously, it's premature to expect anything truly substantive to come out of an opening session. Recriminations have to happen first, I suppose. What struck me was this:

Dellums has not yet finalized the local A's stadium committee, said Paul Rose, the mayor's spokesman.

I'm not sure how to react to this.

Oakland FD Training Site

In the last few weeks, I've gotten several requests to add a particular Oakland site for review on the blog. The site in question is a veritable wedge formed by the mouth of Lake Merritt channel to the east, 880 to the north, Fallon Street to the west, and the combination of Union Pacific railroad tracks and The Embarcadero to the south.

The site is often referred to as the OFD training site, and while that's correct, the city only owns 6 acres in the area, 4 of which are actually usable for the ballpark (the rest is either underneath the elevated freeway or a buffer for the channel). Another key section is owned by Peralta Community College District, though it by all appearances is cleared out. The area was once home to a sizable homeless encampment, which was cleared out about 2 years ago.

In between the two parcels is the remains of an old rail right-of-way. A bridge spanning the channel still exists, AFAIK. According to OaklandExplorer, the ROW is not on any parcel maps, so it is also probably owned by the city. As you'll see from the next image, the combination of these parcels is not enough to contain the ballpark.

The ballpark encroaches upon a few industrial properties in the area. At least one of these is either vacant or available for lease, which means it could be ripe for purchase. However, as V Smoothe pointed out in the previous thread, this is where it gets complicated. The entire site is split between Central City (Downtown) and Central City East (Fruitvale/San Antonio/O29). I don't have specifics about how this makes the situation more difficult, but I can imagine that either some kind of RDA annexation would have to occur or bonds may have to be raised separately to acquire parcels in either section. Each district has its own distinct RDA budget and bonding cap. Here's a breakdown of the district separation:

• Central City East - OFD, Peralta/Laney, East Bay Restaurant Supply and adjacent warehouses
• Central City - Self Storage facility, residential triplex, additional warehouse
  

The other industrial properties in the area wouldn't be a big deal if it weren't for an additional requirement - 1,200 parking spaces near the ballpark. Yes, there are parking garages being built near JLS, but a new, 1,200-space garage will be the minimum for team employees, VIP's, and premium seat holders.

As I mentioned in the previous post comments thread, freeway infrastructure in the area is severely lacking. The Oak St offramp from 880 north is less than 1/4 mile long, and it will need to be lengthened and widened to handle new traffic. The 5th Ave overpass and exit project is currently out for bid, and was not designed to handle traffic from something like a ballpark. The Embarcadero is slated for widening and new traffic signals as part of the O29 project. The recently certified EIR for O29 shows that traffic at Embarcadero/5th Ave will reach unacceptable levels by 2025. A ballpark will not enhance the situation, and if something gets built there a major revamp of on/offramps will be needed to make things livable for all who live and work in the area, not just the A's.

Fortunately, the site is only 1/4 mile from the Lake Merritt BART station. It's also 1/4 mile from the JLS Amtrak station. A shuttle is planned to take new O29 residents around Downtown. There was talk earlier in the decade about a trolley, but there's no chance of that happening in anytime soon.

If the outfield view doesn't look too terribly impressive, that's because the distance to the Oakland Hills through center field is twice as far as the distance from the Coliseum to Leona Quarry.

Now's the time for some back-of-the-envelope numbers.

• Ballpark: $500 million (assuming 2014 or later opening)
  
• Land acquisition for ballpark: $30 million
  
• Relocation costs for OFD training site: $5 million plus land acquisition
  
• 1,200 space garage: $30 million including land
• Freeway access improvements: $50 million or more depending on how extensive already planned 880 project is going to be
• Surface street traffic improvements: Unknown
  

That's $115 million in infrastructure improvements with additional mitigation work on the horizon.

Keep in mind that a ballpark project would have to undergo its own EIR/CEQA process. Judging by the difficulty encountered in the O29 project, a ballpark EIR could be just as lengthy. The same environmentalists who decried O29 would only have to shift their vision slightly to the west. Why? The key piece of land, the fire training site, has already been designated as open space. When I asked this same group a few years back about whether or not a ballpark could be used on open space, I got two reactions: quizzical stares and chuckles.

There's also the question of whether or not area landowners are willing to sell. Thankfully, there aren't that many here. Should one or two balk, it would be difficult to get a ballpark deal done. The one I'm curious about is East Bay Restaurant Supply, which just celebrated its 75th anniversary in Oakland. Eminent domain has to be out of the picture, unless one lives in Fantasyland.

Economically, the site would be better for the A's than the downtrodden Coliseum area. Still, there's probably a sizable gap in available corporate dollars between this site and San Jose, given that the ballpark is moving further away from Silicon Valley. The cost of needed infrastructure has to give one pause. The City of Oakland has requested $2.6 billion in stimulus funds. I'm not going to present a false dichotomy here, but if the City really felt it had to request more in stimulus funds than the rest of the Bay Area cities combined, it's pretty difficult to justify adding another project whose value outside its limited purpose is questionable at best.

Gotta admit, though, it looks pretty good in the screenshots.

Oh Happy Charade!

Tonight was the first Opening Night I've missed since college, going back 15 years. Instead, I was with family and friends across the plaza at the Roaracle, watching a surprisingly entertaining game between the W's and the Yao-less, T-Mac-less Rockets. Thanks to all who offered a drink tonight at the A's game, I most assuredly would've taken you up on the offer if I was there. I'll take a rain check.

To beat the traffic on 880 tonight, I missed the Friday episode of Chronicle Live, which had an interview with Lew Wolff and other guests. Greg Papa had Scott Ostler and SacBee columnist Paul Gutierrez in studio, more on that later.

Papa, who's done a bangup job as host so far in the show's brief history, did his level best to corner Wolff on several quotes and tough questions to get the A's managing partner to make admissions about San Jose. Wolff wasn't biting, however, and Papa realized this perhaps halfway through the interview. Hopefully there'll be a rematch in the future and we can see Wolff dodge Papa's thrusts again.

Papa's best questions involved Wolff's motivation for abandoning the Fremont plan so quickly. Here's the exchange:

Papa: We were at a luncheon, if you recall, in late February... and I asked you about Fremont and where that was, and at the time you gave me some encouraging feedback that the Fremont ballpark option was there. In less than a week later I read in the paper that the Fremont option is no longer there. So what happened in a week's time, what happened to Fremont?

Wolff: The only two sites that were available - we were hoping that at least one would work out - in one case we had adjacent property owners, retailers, who had a liability clause that we couldn't accept. In the other case we had really well organized homeowners - we weren't trying to hurt their neighborhood - but they were indicating that they were prepared, under CA law, to file a CEQA lawsuit which could go on a couple of years. We just didn't want to continue under that circumstance. The City was fine, as was the staff.

Papa: Was the financing in place to get the ballpark built?

Wolff: We're not as concerned about the financing as getting a place to build it. Because of certain income streams we have including your organization (CSN), I think we can do what we can do - our great ballpark. Remember we're only talking about 32,000 seats. We're not trying to emulate Yankee Stadium or the Mets.

CSN's Chronicle Live site currently has truncated video segments. Here's one of four:


Jumping forward a bit during the in-studio followup:

Papa: Listening to Mr. Wolff talk, I'm a little surprised why they gave up so early on Fremont. Because people were protesting outside? ... if the financing is there, and you've got land to go ahead and do it, are you gonna back off? Anytime you build anything in this world you're gonna have protesters. I think baseball would say, "Let's go back and look at this Fremont deal a little closer."

Ostler: Somebody on the Giants told me - I think they're within their rights - when we were planning our ballpark if we had given up every time 50 neighbors got together to complain we would have never...

Papa: I can't build a fence up in my yard without my neighbors protesting!

Gutierrez: The thing with Fremont to me, it never made sense because it was 5 miles from the nearest BART station.

Papa: You want them to go to Sacramento.

Gutierrez: I said it was a 10,000-seat stadium, it's actually a 15,000-seat stadium that's easily expandable.

Well, Gutierrez is right about Raley Field being expandable. Easy? Not so much. Can't blame the guy for trying. It's a civic duty of some sort, I suppose.

The most anticipated segment was to have San Jose mayor Chuck Reed and Doug Boxer, head of the committee to keep the A's in Oakland and recently part of Oakland's Planning Commission. Boxer happens to be the son of Stuart Boxer, longtime Oakland attorney, and Senator Barbara Boxer, she of the lovely letter to Selig from last week. Selig and the A's stepped in to put the kibosh on that segment, probably in light of the recent tragedies. As noted by Papa, it would've been inappropriate to debate this now. It's also an indicator that Selig is indeed tightening the leash and controlling the narrative.

Elsewhere, a commenter purporting to be Doug Boxer went on V Smoothe's A Better Oakland blog to press the case for keeping the A's in town. A comment that he might want to take back no matter how true it may be is this:

Have you watched Bud Selig as the Commissioner. He’s a dolt who doesn’t get it. I doubt he did any homework. He’s a college frat brother of Lew’s and I’m sure it has more to do w/ that than anything else.

I'm guessing that if you want to keep the A's in Oakland, it'd be a good idea not to refer to the guy who holds the team's fate in his hands as a dolt who doesn't get it. Otherwise, the exchange between Boxer and V Smoothe is a good one. Definitely worth reading.

A moment of silence

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