Brown speaks out about redevelopment
- 06.23.11, 17:15
- 66 Comments
Turns out that Governor Jerry Brown and Lew Wolff may agree on something after all.
Too bad it’s not something that can help the A’s anytime soon.
Speaking at the Pacific Coast Builders Conference in SF, Brown addressed the equally touchy subjects of CEQA (EIR process) and redevelopment. About the former:
Brown spoke about his time running Oakland, where he says he received a crash course in local politics.
“Every project was opposed by somebody,” he said. “I never had the experience of so much mindless resistance.”
His principal goal in Oakland was the creation of market-rate housing into the city’s core, which Brown thought would bring more disposable income.
It’s important to note that the opposition hasn’t shown up yet to the Victory Court project because nothing of significant substance has yet been presented. When it does, well, we’ll see how steely the collective resolve is to build a ballpark.
As a developer, Wolff has complained as frequently about CEQA as he has about the Coliseum’s warts. Brown no doubt felt the heat when eminent domain was used under his watch to acquire the Uptown site, not to mention the lawsuits and other challenges the project (built by his friends at Forest City) faced. All of that was done under the CEQA umbrella.
Brown also reaffirmed his position on choosing other budgetary needs over redevelopment. Perhaps some of the reporters in the Capitol were correct in saying that the two “compromise” bills that were passed by he Legislature but not sent to the Governor would be vetoed on the grounds that Brown felt they didn’t go far enough.
And the beat goes on…
Not bartelby but there will be a ruling after the CBA is hammered out and the owners pull contraction (unlikely to happen anyway) off the table in exchange for some minor consideration from the MLBPA. I’ve been saying this for over a year and have seen no evidence to indicate that this is false.
@ Anon Hmmm, I think you have my thoughts slightly confused. Labeling the perspectives of Oakland first fans as “vague and Emotional arguments” comes across more than a little condescending. So we are the weak minded children as opposed to rational and stoic San Jose first fans? Maybe I’m being thin skinned but that seems inappropriate. Also, saying Oakland will be “eclipsed” if the A’s go to San Jose is strong and competitive rhetoric. It’s not the image I personally fear losing, heck Oakland has NEVER gotten a good image in the bay, it’s the history, local pride and culture the A’s in Oakland has developed. I don’t mean to be disrespectful, so forgive me if I come across that way, but the uniqueness that came with Oakland teams, the rebel Raiders, the swinging mustachioed fighting A’s, would probably not have developed that way in a suburb-like atmosphere like San Jose. There is something special, kinda off, un-mainstream about Oakland teams. Sports teams tend to reflect their city and in Oakland’s case incredibly so. I am biased, but I don’t think anyone can disagree that the urban core of the East Bay adds something special to its teams.
Wait wait wait….
In response to: “I’ve heard that LW has it all wrapped up but I haven’t seen anything in print on the numbers.”
.
Bartleby says:
“Why would you? No business makes that level of detail public. But when we keep hearing “John Fisher is one of the richest men in the universe” (with the implication that he could fund a park in Oakland with no revenue coming in), why would you doubt it?”
—-
Hmmmm, so you are slamming Oakland for having no plan, but by LW saying this project is “shovel ready”, that’s enough for you even though no plan has been put into place and publicized? Hilarious. How is that different from Oakland keeping quiet on their plans? Seems like it’s okay for many on this board to rip Oakland for having “ideas w/ no plans” but for some reason, LW saying, “We are good to go” w/o showing how that’s working, is okay.
I have a no doubt LW has a “plan”in place for SJ. Why wouldn’t he? He’s spent 98% of the time he should have working with Oakland on a ballpark, actually working with Fremont and SJ. That is why many fans who would like to see the team in Oakland, are so upset. His JOB was to find a ballpark in Oakland. He instead, did a once over, bypassed some terrific options that he could have worked on, picked an impossible spot as the “only option” (one he knew wouldn’t work), and then has clearly stated there are no options in the East Bay / Alameda County.
Sorry, that smells of BS and if you were objective on this situation (even if you personally want a park in SJ or Fremont) you would absolutely agree with that statement.
So lets be clear, according to the posters on this site:
1. SJ is shovel ready according to LW, but nobody has any idea how that will be funded because it hasn’t been publicized.
2. Oakland is not an option because no plan have been publicized.
3. Oakland has had severe attendance issues, even when winning.
And so on and so forth. Seems like a bunch of conjecture and BS to me. If I remember correctly, the year the A’s were in the playoffs vs. the Twins, a lot of talk was how the A’s couldn’t sellout their stadium for a playoff game. I believe that a. their park holds what, 60k+ at full capacity, b. didn’t they have multiple weekday games so that the other more high profile teams could have night games? and c. I believe I read somewhere that tix to A’s playoff games, on average, were more expensive than Yankees playoff tix.
If any of that is incorrect, I apologize – they are things I remember hearing / reading – don’t want to call it out as fact. That said, if correct, it again shows how silly our organization actually is.
Lastly, I would again like to point out: LW has consistently cried to the press how horrible the stadium is. I get it. That said: when the owner of a company discusses just how terrible of a product he has to offer, how terrible the fan experience is, do you think that makes people run to purchase tix for it? Is it not fair to ask that LW actually try to improve the situation as much as he can, within his control, to attract fans and increase attendance at home games? If you agree (as I do) then you can also agree that the A’s have NOT done that. Instead, they do what they can to keep fans away. If you are in a bad stadium, deal with it until it’s fixed (whether that’s SJ or Oakland or Timbuktu). Many incredible teams have gone through horrible patches of crappy teams and crappy attendance, and then have turned it around. I don’t understand why the A’s can’t do that. It starts with winning first: this team has been absolutely pathetic for several years now – the small amount of fans that do show up are hardcore fans that love the team, that will go to the games regardless of their situation. The key is to get the fringe fans – w/o a new park, that is much harder. W/o a new park and with a boring, bland and not-so-hot team makes that very difficult. W/o a new park and with a boring, bland and not-so-hot team makes, and with an ownership group who tells you not to waste your time by coming — that makes it nearly impossible.
Asch,
More apt to believe Wolff vs. Oakland because he’s the actual owner of the A’s, a member of the MLB “Lodge,” and he has the money/monetary means.
Again, when (or if) Oakland acquires ALL the VC parcels, relocates all the businesses, pays for ALL the surrounding infrastructure improvements, and promises a sizable chunk of public funding for the actual ballpark, then and only then will you have a good argument against Wolff.
Until then…
@asch “Hmmmm, so you are slamming Oakland for having no plan, but by LW saying this project is “shovel ready”, that’s enough for you even though no plan has been put into place and publicized?”
.
First, I think you’re confusing me with others. I haven’t been posting about plan/no plan, public/not public. To me, that’s mostly irrelevant. I have been posting about having a source of funding/revenue. That’s different.
.
I think we all know roughly what the A’s funding plan is, and it looks a lot like the Giants. That is to say, it entirely depends on long term commitments from corporate premium and charter seat holders. I don’t particularly care what the micro details are. The reason I believe it works in San Jose and not in Oakland is because that revenue source exists in San Jose and not in Oakland. Without that leg of the tripod, the stool falls over.
.
“if you were objective on this situation (even if you personally want a park in SJ or Fremont) you would absolutely agree with that statement.”
.
Actually, if you’ve been reading my posts for any length of time, I haven’t argued that the A’s invested a huge amount of effort in trying to build a ballpark in Oakland. On the contrary, I’ve said I don’t believe they did. But I also don’t think they had some kind of moral obligation to waste time on this when it’s pretty obvious that the economic fundamentals aren’t there. If you know that a key revenue source you need to finance the project isn’t available in a certain location, why would you waste your time? No amount of site evaluation will give Oakland a corporate base. Whatever LGO is doing will not give Oakland a corporate base. No phone calls to Jean Quan will give Oakland a corporate base. Lew Wolff didn’t waste time in Oakland for the same reason he didn’t waste time in Omaha; because it was pretty obvious it wasn’t going to work.
.
“So lets be clear, according to the posters on this site:
1. SJ is shovel ready according to LW, but nobody has any idea how that will be funded because it hasn’t been publicized.”
.
SJ is shovel ready because we have a pretty good idea how it will be funded and the necessary revenue source exists there.
.
“2. Oakland is not an option because no plan have been publicized.”
.
Not because a plan hasn’t been publicized. Because a revenue source necessary to support a valid plan doesn’t exist there.
.
“3. Oakland has had severe attendance issues, even when winning. And so on and so forth. Seems like a bunch of conjecture and BS to me.”
.
You’re relatively new to the blog so maybe you haven’t read them, but ML, Jeffrey and others have done a lot of nifty statistical analysis over the years which shows A’s attendance correlates strongly with winning and little with any of the factors you mention. But even when winning, the A’s attendance has consistently been in the bottom half of the AL. And this is not just in the Wolff years, it’s through their entire history in Oakland.
.
“It starts with winning first: this team has been absolutely pathetic for several years now – the small amount of fans that do show up are hardcore fans that love the team, that will go to the games regardless of their situation.”
.
Every fan wants their team to win, obviously. But there’s only a set number of wins to go around in MLB each year, and there is an equal number of losses. It’s a zero sum game. So even if every MLB team hires the best and brightest minds and tries its best within its means, there’s going to be roughly as many teams with losing records as winning records. It’s basic math. And if you’re playing on an unlevel playing field (as exists in MLB) and you’re one of the “have not” teams, you’re going to come out on the short end more often.
.
I think the A’s have been trying to win the past years. They’ve increased payroll to $80 million when they felt they were in a position to make a run. They’ve signed some big name free agents, and tried to sign some others. I haven’t really disagreed with most of the baseball moves they’ve made. But they’ve had a freakish number of injuries, and things just haven’t worked out. That’s baseball..
.
Still, at the end of the day and has been posted here previously, A’s attendance has consistently underperformed expectations relative to their performance on the field throughout their history. When they win attendance goes up, but not as much as one would expect. When they lose attendance goes down more than one would expect. It’s not a promising dynamic.
The real question is how will San Jose fix this? Or be any better. I have yet to see arguments supporting this.
@bartleby: Sorry – my post was only to you at the beginning (regarding exactly what you mentioned – funding in SJ vs. funding in Oakland). The rest of the post was more of just a general post to all. I didn’t intend to direct that entire post to you and sorry if it came off that way.
However, the intent was on your quote regarding why would we hear a huge level of detail regarding plans/funding etc – but then questioning where the funding/plan is coming from in regards to Oakland. I believe I read that above/earlier and that portion of the post was directed to you. Sorry if the rest got tied into it. :)
That said, again and in general to all: Saying that SJ has more revenue opportunity and that SJ is shovel ready, is a bit misleading from where I stand. It’s really just a matter of LW saying that that is the case. I don’t believe any of us have seen where that revenue is physically coming from (or anything else) past naming rights.
If I remember correctly too (and I could be wrong) SJ is not fully buttoned up as LW presents it to be.
Asch,
Being blunt, you need to stop worrying about San Jose and what Wolff says about San Jose.
What you really need to do is start asking serious questions about Oakland and demanding answers from The O.
If you don’t do that then you’re in classic denial over this entire situation. Enough from me on this thread.
@asch “However, the intent was on your quote regarding why would we hear a huge level of detail regarding plans/funding etc – but then questioning where the funding/plan is coming from in regards to Oakland.”
.
I don’t think I did question where a funding plan in coming from in regards to Oakland, at least not in this thread, nor did I raise the question “show me the financing plan.” My comment was a response to a debate between GoAs and Columbo over financing plans. Columbo had asked why we hadn’t seen a detailed financing plan for San Jose. My point was I wouldn’t expect a private business to share this, and it isn’t terribly important to me believing the deal can be done in San Jose because I know Silicon Valley to be one of the richest corporate markets in the country. On the other hand, I questioned why Oakland-only fans would even question whether such a plan exists for San Jose (which has those revenue streams) when they are prepared to believe such a plan even could exist for Oakland (which does not). Basically, the expectation on the Oakland-only side seems to be that John Fisher will dig deep even without those revenue streams, which is not a reasonable or realistic expectation.
.
“That said, again and in general to all: Saying that SJ has more revenue opportunity and that SJ is shovel ready, is a bit misleading from where I stand. It’s really just a matter of LW saying that that is the case. I don’t believe any of us have seen where that revenue is physically coming from (or anything else) past naming rights.”
.
That’s not entirely true. We don’t have access to the same data that Wolff, Schott, Neukom and Macgowan, but we can note that they all drew the same conclusions from it. Also, we can make some educated guesses based on public information.
.
First, we can make a rough guesstimate how important premium seat revenue is to the financing by looking at the Giants’ seating and pricing map. My back-of-the-envelope guesstimate is that premium and charter seating revenue accounts for something like 50% of the Giants’ gate. This may be off a bit in either direction, but I think it’s fair to say the magnitude of this revenue stream falls into the “financing doesn’t work without it.”
.
Then, we can consider who’s buying this product. Overwhelmingly, it’s large corporations, law firms, VC firms, consulting firms and the like. The Giants sold a lot of these products only on a FULL season basis, often with a multi-year commitment. Even very rich people aren’t likely to make this kind of commitments for 81 games per year over a span of multiple years.
.
Then, we could look at where the target market for this product is located in the Bay Area. By far the largest concentration is in Silicon Valley, next largest in San Francisco. My educated guess would run something like 50% Silicon Valley, 30% San Francisco, 20% “rest of the Bay Area (including the East Bay).
.
It is far easier to get to AT&T Park than Oakland from virtually all the Peninsula and South Bay. Also, the Giants begin with a head-start in terms of fan base in this area. It is just inconceivable to me that large numbers of this demographic will make long term commitments, not to visit their clients, but to drag their clients through 90 minutes to 2 hours of traffic to see a game in Oakland when there’s a far more convenient option in San Francisco.
.
Fundamentally, what I’m saying is that I believe building a new ballpark in Oakland is tantamount to ceding something like 80% of the target market needed to support it to the Giants. My numbers may be off somewhat, but not enough to affect my underlying point.
“Being blunt, you need to stop worrying about San Jose and what Wolff says about San Jose.
What you really need to do is start asking serious questions about Oakland and demanding answers from The O. If you don’t do that then you’re in classic denial over this entire situation.”
@Tony
Being blunt, what really needs to happen is Lew needs to actually start communicating with Oakland so that a deal can be completed. His refusal to do so (for years I might add, years) has put any possible progress on a new ballpark in Oakland in serious delay – and that overall means a new ballpark in general in serious jeopardy. It’s exactly why the city of Oakland is moving forward WITHOUT Lew – because Lew and ownership have removed themselves from the conversation for years. Saying “it can’t work” without working on it means he’s continuing to blame others for his unwillingness to work out a park in Oakland. He and others saying “we tried and it can’t work” is absolutely not true. So IF the A’s can’t get a new park in Oakland done, and the giants rights are upheld, and LW moves the team outside of the bay, the cause of that will NOT be Oakland’s fault, but rather LW himself (though i am sure most people on this site will not blame him. It’s certainly easier for many of you to blame a series of events that happened 15-20 years ago).
I have absolutely NOTHING to do with MLB’s position on territorial rights. Also, it’s not my job to ask questions from The O. it’s actually LW and ownership’s job to work on a deal to build a new park in Oakland. I don’t own the team, they do. And their insistence on dismissing a new park in Oakland may be extremely hazardous to this organization and it’s ability to keep the team in the bay area.
See how I did that? I said Bay Area. That’s right – because if the Giants rights ARE sacred as Selig says, then should we assume Selig/MLB will not allow the A’s to move there? Then what? Then LW will move the team to where? Portland? Omaha? Columbus? If Lew is so against Oakland, and working with the city to build a park, he shouldn’t have bought the team. Because frankly, if the team is forced out of the bay area, it will be on ownership’s shoulders, not asch’s shoulders (or other pro-Oakland fans). Does that make sense? Does it? Because cutting off the organizations best (and possibly most feasible) option to keep the team in the bay area, means….well….. do you see what that means?
re: Being blunt, what really needs to happen is Lew needs to actually start communicating with Oakland so that a deal can be completed.
…but the deal Oakland wants is a free ballpark – one built with no public assistance. Wolff already knows that can’t happen in Oakland unless the owners volunteer to become paupers. Already in debt on the Oakland Coliseum and laying off police officers and shutting libraries, Oakland has no money tp spend on a new ballpark. What’s Wolff supposed to do? Tell Oakland he can’t build a viable ballpark without public assistance so the next day;s headllines can read: “Billionaires Wolff, Fischer Demand Big $$$ from poor Oakland.”….If the A’s leave the Bay Area, it will be primarily the fault of the Giants and Oakland politicians.
and LW moves the team outside of the bay, the cause of that will NOT be Oakland’s fault
…Um, Schott had a deal on baseball-only improvements to the Coliseum. Oakland broke that deal. City Manager Robert Bobb fashioned a way to get a new ballpark. Mayor Jerry Brown fired him for devising that proposal. Asch, it seems like you’ve got your story and you’re sticking to it and no amount of facts is going to change your beliefs.
@asch All of your arguments seem to assume, without any meaningful scrutiny, that the Oakland/San Francisco area has the economic fundamentals necessary to support not one, but two MLB teams within eight miles of each other, each carrying a massive mortgage on a new ballpark. Nevermind that MLB economics are the most challenging in professional sports and that the vast majority of metro areas would be hard pressed to support one team, let alone two teams that close together. Nevermind the extreme imbalance in access to corporate money of those two teams.
.
Please assume, for the sake of this discussion, that both teams’ ownership groups have data which shows them they simply cannot service a mortgage that size without large amounts of premium seat revenue. Assume also that both teams have market survey data which show, due to travel time and other factors, the Giants are going to absolutely dominate this market segment if a new ballpark is built in Oakland.
.
Assuming all this to be the case, can you really blame the A’s for not spending a lot of time on Oakland? All these other considerations of site, etc. are moot if the revenue is not there to support the financing.
.
I believe all of these things to be true just based on publicly-available data. I also believe the A’s and Giants have much more detailed data which lays all this out even more dramatically. They know much more precisely how much of the Giants revenue is dependent on the Silicon Valley corporate market. They also know much more precisely where there specific target customers are. The A’s also know that the charter seat financing mechanism used so successfully by the Giants in San Francisco is a non-starter in Oakland because of the Raiders PSL debacle.
.
Doesn’t it tell you something that the Giants would rather have that A’s ballpark only eight miles away than forty miles away? There’s no question that a VC ballpark would hurt Giants overall attendance more than a Diridon ballpark. Doesn’t that tell you something pretty dramatic about the importance of that corporate revenue?
.
As a rational person, I think you would have to concede that if all the facts I have posited are in fact true Lew Wolff has behaved reasonably. Really, there is no point discussing whether VC can work as a site unless someone on the Oakland side steps up and says “here is a creative revenue source which makes up for the lack of corporate money.” If you assume public funds are out of bounds, I cannot for the life of me imagine what that funding source could be and really don’t think it exists.
re: f you assume public funds are out of bounds, I cannot for the life of me imagine what that funding source could be and really don’t think it exists.
…Oakland’s only hope is for MLB to charitably pay for the ballpark, something it’s never done. MLB wants taxpayers to foot the bill for these things. For the latest reference, see: Nationals ballpark
Selig has until the end of this year to make a decision….Or its lawsuit time!
Vicent Piazza challenged MLBs Anti-Trust exemption and won in the Florida Supreme Court for being denied moving the Giants. He won and was going to sue MLB directly but……..Selig, who is a coward, paid Piazza 20M to shut up and gave him an expansion franchise that turned out to be a real thorn at his side…The Rays.
Selig will cut deals with his back to the ball, you have to force him to do so or he does nothing as we all can clearly see.
San Jose needs to use this to their advantage and make him look foolish to the whole country.
Imagine if the Giants left to Tampa Bay? The A’s would be in San Francisco while San Jose would have gotten an expansion franchise.
What a twist of fate…