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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.