There’s a bevy of articles about the 49ers’ dealings with Santa Clara: Chronicle Mercury News Examiner … and one in the Merc about the Quakes’ dealings with San Jose. For the Niners’ stadium project, the previously unknown cost for moving and/or reconfiguring the on-site power substation now has a price tag: $20 million. In addition, [...]

As part of the A’s efforts to win the citizens of Fremont over, an event was held today involving a representative of the team and the Chamber’s Task Force (of which I am a member). It promises to be the first of many different types of events involving the A’s and the community. A pamphlet [...]

(See? I can create completely distorted headlines, too.)Argus scribe Chris De Benedetti got Stanford sports economist Roger Noll’s take on the ERA economic impact report. The assessment: The A’s economic report on the proposed ballpark village in Fremont is “far better” than the 49ers’ report presented to Santa Clara, said Roger Noll, an esteemed Bay [...]

From a note sent out earlier today: FROM: CITY OF FREMONT SUBJECT: BALLPARK VILLAGE PROJECT – GENERAL GUIDELINES This is to advise you that an agenda item has been scheduled for the regular City Council meeting of Tuesday, May 22, 2007, on a proposed set of General Guidelines for use in negotiations on the Oakland [...]

A couple of interesting news items before I rant a bit: 106.9 Free FM (KIFR) is switching formats to classic rock, reviving the locally legendary KFRC call letters. Apparently there will be no change to A’s coverage. Existing talk programming on KIFR will move to the weaker AM sister, KYCY-1550. Hennepin County is prepping the [...]

Gauging the effects a project like the Ballpark Village will have on a city the size of Fremont is difficult to understand or project. On one hand, a large influx of new residents could severely strain already scarce resources. On the other hand, it’s possible that new tax revenues could make up for the need [...]

Yesterday I bought a ticket for the game online. Instead of going the will call route, I chose the A’s new Tickets@Phone option, which sends a e-ticket to your mobile phone. The idea is that instead of waiting in line for will call tickets at the Coliseum, you could go straight to the gate and [...]

In the last installment we covered the impact of new retail development and the increase in sales taxes the ballpark village would provide. This time out we’ll turn our attention to housing. It’s the key to the whole deal, as it’s assumed that housing proceeds will largely fund the ballpark. Housing is where A’s consultants [...]

Chron’s Patrick Hoge reports: The owners of the Oakland A’s announced today that they have signed a contract to buy 168 acres for a proposed ballpark development in Fremont. Lew Wolff, the team’s managing partner, said the deal will allow him quickly to submit an application to the city for a roughly 32,000-seat stadium, surrounded [...]

It’s amazing what happens when you’re not trying to sell the moon. While some of the projections in the economic impact report fall into the half-full (vs. half-empty) classification, many of the assumptions are well grounded and make a good foundation for the case the report lays out. Since neither the city or county are [...]