Just arrived here at Fremont City Hall. Plenty of other business on the agenda tonight. A smattering of A’s fans too.
City Manager Fred Diaz’s quote of the night: “The report is expected to be released the coming weeks, but I’m not holding my breath.”
$158,000 has been spent so far on studies. No action other than to receive the NUMMI reuse report. And now the public speaks.
So far, six out of the first ten speakers are anti-stadium. I recognize most of them as FCN members. Unfortunately, one of the speakers has gone off the deep end regarding the crime angle.
Totals: Six speakers for, six against. Now the council has their questions.
The Federal grant ($333,000) authorizes four separate studies, covering immediate local and regional concerns and impact. Bob Wieckowski appears to trying to confirm that the process is not, in fact, rigged in favor of the A’s. Anu Natarajan echoes one of the speakers in calling for a rational, academic approach to the redevelopment process. She also hits back hard at Vinnie Bacon’s assertion that Fremont let NUMMI workers down by doing nothing to stop the closure. She also points out that the opponents’ stance of claiming incompatibility between a ballpark and manufacturing is a false dichotomy given that SVLG supports the A’s move. (She concedes that more study is needed.)
There’s a 10 minute break. Some of the Chamber members greet me, as does Councilman Bill Harrison, who mentions that he saw me on the KTVU iPad piece. Which reminds me – if Fremont had a ballpark as an anchor, they’d also have an Apple Store in all likelihood. Instead, residents have to go over a bridge to Palo Alto, down the Sunol Grade to Stoneridge, or down 880 to Valley Fair.
Back from the break. The place has pretty much emptied out. Harrison starts off by defending the city and its handling of the NUMMI closure. Suzanne Chan wants clarification on the timeline. Apparently a council action would occur in July, followed by a “Notice to Proceed” on planning.
Methinks Vinnie Bacon might have to offer up an apology for his off-the-cuff comment. He’s gonna have as hard enough fight in November to begin with, the last thing he needs is to be known as a mudslinger. Mayor Wasserman has the dais now. He’s basically saying that the critics don’t know what they’re talking about regarding NUMMI, to put it mildly.
That’s drama in Fremont, folks!
newballpark.org 
good coverage ML
Why a ballpark is a good fit in downtown San Jose, but not in Fremont. There are tons of reasons. Lew Wolff and his investors should have good answers.
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Will the Fremont ballpark end up more like AT&T Park, or Oakland Coliseum?
Or, could it be more like Citizens Bank Park, Rangers Ballpark at Arlington, the Big A in Anaheim? Those are all suburban stadiums, no?
I’ve been to the Ballpark in Arlington, which is in a suburban setting. Didn’t see any of the “crime and chaos” feared by some.
As far as whether the Fremont park ends up like the Oakland Coliseum, I’ve been to the Coliseum 100 times at least, taken both my young children to the complex, been there at all different times of the day. I have sustained exactly zero crime and chaos in two decades of going to the Coliseum. That includes times wearing a Miami Dolphins jacket to Raiders games.
The problems with the Coliseum have nothing to do with any “crime and chaos” but have to do with it being inadequate, a situation made worse by the football retrofit. As inferior as it is to other ballparks, the Oakland Coliseum remains the jewel of Oakland.
But the problem is that the state of the Coliseum, and the look of the surrounding area, the reputation of Raider fans (mainly LA Raider fans, but the image translated), in addition to the perception of Oakland as a crime laden city, makes people look at the Coliseum as a dangerous place to go to, and the addition of a Stadium to Fremont as a transplant of a similar situation (ie; that they’ll bring the crime with them).
Coliseum is considered dangerous as it is OAKLAND. has nothing to dow tih baseball
Don’t go there if it’s so dangerous. I’ve had no problems going to games for the last 40 years and I’ve park on the side streets these last 10-12 years to save on the rip off parking fees.
Actually Lake Merritt is considered the jewel of the city of Oakland, but we get what you’re saying. At least I know I do. The Coliseum has been like a second home to me so I guess in a cool little way it is the jewel of Oakland as well. What is a pretty cool thought though is being able to walk to the Victory Court ballpark site from the lake (yes I live in that area and it’s one of the best neighborhoods to live in Oakland I must say). I’ve been going to the Coliseum for I don’t know how many years now for the A’s, Warriors and Raiders and I’ve always felt completely safe when attending every single game…and even the times when going solo with nothing but my radio. The fans are usually all very cool so walking to my car (I always park outside on a “side” street somewhere in the cuts) after a game at night was always a totally safe feeling I had. But yes, the Coliseum industrial area is not ideal at all for baseball these days with 81 games a year. It would be much more ideal in a downtown/urban setting which two other MAJOR cities seem to be able present which is more than I can say that Fremont has to offer other than open space that the city doesn’t even own.
Citizens Bank Park is in a similar location to the Coliseum – an industrial area of south Philly. The Eagles’ stadium is across the street, and the arena for NBA and NHL is also nearby (the Spectrum was also in that area). The people of Philadelphia long ago appear to have decided to put their sports complexes in the same area away from downtown, since the Vet was right next door to where Citizens Bank Park is now.
I know, I have been there. My point was that it has been a fairly successful stadium in a Coliseum like environment. To pretend that the only two possible scenarios are AT&T or Oakland Coliseum is a pretty uninformed position to take.
I really don’t want to see the A’s in Fremont if San Jose or JLS can be worked out. But it has nothing to do with this crime or chaos… What exactly is chaos defined as in this situation anyway? These are specious arguments being put forth.
A 370 acre parcel being redeveloped is nothing like the Coliseum or AT&T Park or any other baseball stadium really.
The real question is what can happen with the 370 acres that is acceptable to Vinnie Bacon and the crew? Do they want more empty office buildings like the “Fremont Tech Center” just down the road along 880? Do they want low rise condo buildings? Do they want a mall? A NASCAR track?
I just see a lot of FUD being pedaled and it is ridiculous.
Not that Fremont proponents seem any more realistic in their assessment of the benefits of a stadium.
I live in Philly and Citizens bank park is SO NOT the same l;ocation as the coliseum. That place is the ghetto and Philly area is NOT. there are many venues such as the wachovia center and the lincif that is what you are reffering to. but as far as safety? no not the same AT ALL ( I am from the bay BTW)
the linc *
Any discussion about the mulitmillion-dollar but now apparently useless Warms Springs BART extension and how an A’s stadium could help monetize that? The extension is no longer needed for NUMMI workers, obviously, and the A’s were chased out. So who is going to use the thing?
Warm Springs is useful in that it is on the way to San Jose/Diridon. It’s as far as they can go right now with the money they have – build what you can in furtherance of the ultimate goal.
I can’t see much use for the Warm Springs BART station either. I’m just assuming that it’s there because of the great length BART will have to span in order to get to DT San Jose and then up the Peninsula. The current plan beyond Warm Springs in order is a Great Mall station, Berryessa, Alum Rock, DT SJ, Diridon, Santa Clara. The gap between the Fremont Station and Great Mall is pretty vast so I guess Warm Springs is as good a place as any to plop another station. I read that they may even build a Hwy237/Calaveras station to bridge the gap between Warm Springs and the Great Mall. So, yeah.. I agree with Mark N.
Commuters. Fremont’s a city of 200,000 residents and one BART station. The parking lot at the existing station is packed by 8 AM and it’s not terribly convenient to riders from South Fremont. Plus riders from Santa Clara County won’t have to travel as far or on 15 minutes of surface streets. Even without NUMMI, the Warm Springs Station will be a huge benefit.
Warm Springs will make a huge difference for Santa Clara County even if the Santa Clara County extension is never built.
The amount of effort to get to the exit in Fremont to the BART station off of 880 and then drive across Fremont during the evening rush hour is quite a chore. The Warm Springs station will reduce the amount of time going north on 880 and it will be a lot closer to the freeways. You’ll probably see more people from Santa Clara county using BART to get to Oakland during weekday evenings.
That’s a good point. I didn’t think about that. A Warm Springs BART would intercept some of the commuters from Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, Milpitas, etc who would otherwise have to drive/bus to Fremont/Walnut station.
… and the ever increasing parking crunch. When my girlfriend was commuting from SJ to Fremont BART, there were days when she just drove to work after circling the Fremont Station parking lot to no luck. I don’t envy that commute.
The parking lot is filled by 7:30am most days. It varies a bit depending on the time of year and the day of the week.
There would also be cascading effects on VTA, which has two routes, both express buses, that run between SC Co and Fremont BART. The new BART station will allow for a much shorter reach from the county line, so regular routes from Milpitas could access the Warm Springs Station.
But won’t that bring in – gasp! – traffic!!
Bottom line: While a ballpark brings incapacitating fears of more traffic, Warm Springs is going to get it anyway with the BART extension.
Well, some Warm Springs residents fought the BART station too so it’s not like it’s unfamiliar territory.
…and don’t forget chaos.
Pingback: Someone Else’s Council Diary | Tri-City Beat
Saw a link to this article on the Tri-City Beat blog above. The chronicle chronicles the changes, both good and bad, at China Basin on the ten-year anniversary of AT&T opening.
A couple of issues that some folks may have missed:
The conceptual plan presented by the City in January specifically stated that the County would purchase the land for the stadium. Alameda County taxpayers buying land for a private entertainment business, at a time when serious needs are going unfunded.
According to Ro Khanna, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce, the Federal grant the City just received was targeted to study how to bring manufacturing jobs to the NUMMI area. Mr. Khanna stated that any future grants would be predicated on the City’s ability to leverage this opportunity according to the manufacturing jobs goal. A baseball stadium would manufacture many things, including traffic, waste management, runoff, light and noise issues, and increased demands on already thin public safety resources. It would not, in itself, create manufacturing jobs.
I will not apologize for my comments. The facts are clear.
Last summer, after it was formally announced that NUMMI was closing, the City focused on a serious effort to revive the ballpark project. The City secretly spent over $150,000 and who knows how much staff time pursuing this. The resulting proposal contained a plan for a ballpark, office space and retail, and no manufacturing. Also, as a part of the project, the City was to provide over $80 million in site improvements. This idea would not have generated any manufacturing jobs. This is also a long shot at best as Lew Wolff has publicly said he is no longer interested in Fremont.
Instead, I think the City should have spent this staff time and money studying how we could best restore the manufacturing jobs lost by the closure of NUMMI. They could have initiated a public relations campaign announcing that the City is interested in restoring manufacturing to the site. If we have $80 million to spend on site improvements, we could have announced that the city was willing to spend this money on improvements to the site that would help a manufacturer locate here.
As a challenger to the incumbents, I have every right to criticize their record. This is not ‘mudslinging’. It is expressing a legitimate concern about our City’s failure to address the loss of thousands of good paying jobs.
Vinnie
Matt Artz watched the whole thing this morning and transcribed the statements (poor guy).
In our sound bite filled media world, you ended your statement with this:
Regardless of context or what you previously said (which, while debatable is perfectly legitimate), that’s what got remembered by everyone in the room. It makes it sound like you were trying to establish some kind of causality where there was none. There were no significant manufacturing jobs that were going to pop up April 2nd or even a month from that, we can all agree on that. Manufacturing jobs that left were going to other places with better rent in already built buildings that could be quickly repurposed. We’re talking about “short term” being characterized as 10 years. 10 years! Frankly, you sound like a different version of the people who take potshots at the UAW, saying it’s the reason why NUMMI went down. The truth is so far from that it’s not even funny.
Beyond that, I have to take issue with this false dichotomy that manufacturing and baseball can’t co-exist. That seems to be taken almost entirely from NUMMI’s stance about an encroaching ballpark. The problem there is that NUMMI is so unique and niche that it’s unlike most other Bay Area manufacturing concerns. How many other manufacturers here need a rail link? Or a special overpass for their trucks? The fact is that as much as we loved what NUMMI represented (I have a cousin who worked on the line until the plant closed), it was an anomaly. Most tech companies here either work directly with companies in Taiwan, South Korea, or Singapore for manufacturing, and do at most packaging or provisioning here prior to shipment. Solyndra is an exception, but even with vast amounts of government help they’re in trouble.
The answer may lie in creating a special economic zone on the already developed parts of NUMMI, with incentives for facility re-use. I’m no planner or economist. But I do work in hardware/manufacturing. I can say that unless costs of all stripes come down drastically, manufacturing will not happen here to any significant degree. To make a statement suggesting you could’ve done more for the NUMMI employees than the current council is flat out disingenuous. The severance deal was in the bag with NUMMI management at least six months ago.
Jeeze fellers can we just talk A’s baseball here. I am getting more and more concerned that a new A’s stadium will ever get built in the Bay Area. Lew Wolff does not have an endless life span or patience, and his pockets are not as deep as he likes us to think.
Isn’t California simply too beset with regulations and NIMBY problems to make it worth the effort to pursue manufacturing anywhere in this state? Who wants to try to manufacture something when you need more lawyers than raw materials to do so? There’s a tax on manufacturing equipment, even. San Jose has set aside zones for manufacturing, but no one wants to manufacture anything in California under the current regulatory and neighborhood conditions.
California’s business – and manufacturing climate – is among the worst in the country.
We may not have manufacturing, but thank god we still have the yellow bellied field lizard or the small eared eruopean burrowing owl. NIMBY + CEQA + ESA = Economic Death
Maybe there’s a project for Fremont that brings in lots of six-figure salaried jobs and big tax revenues but produces no garbage for the city dump, requires no smokestacks, puts no cars on the roads, adds no kids to the schools. Maybe they can convene a special meeting on this in the Land of Oz when the Wizard is available.
Come to think of it – a ballpark produces 20 6-, 7- and 8-figured jobs, might add a dozen kids to the schools and is only used 80 days a year. The seagulls take away most of the trash.
Ive lived in fremont my whole life and would love to see them move here. For the people talking about crime, the reason why the coliseum has so much violence is for the simple fact that its located in Oakland. A stadium in Fremont would have way less crime.
So much violence at the Coliseum? I’m not aware of any. Please provide the details..
Yeah, where’s the details on all this crime?
It may not be in the most exciting neighborhood, but crime around the facility is very rare. Inside the park at Raiders game (and some A’s games) there may me a fight or two, but that’s from the fans, who are often from other areas, drinking too much and acting like a-holes.
Serious….lets hear some stories from people who claim that there’s all this crime and violence at the Coliseum because I’ve NEVER heard or seen any myself.
My car radio was stolen while I was at an A’s game in 2005. Of course, my whole car was stolen from my home when I lived in Walnut Creek in 2000, so it can happen anywhere. I’d say being in the middle of an industrial area actually helps keep the crime around the Coli lower.
My buddy’s car radio was stolen out of his car at a Raiders game sometime in the late ’90s.
You decide if there is a lot of crime around the coliseum with this:
http://oakland.crimespotting.org/#dtstart=2010-04-08T23:59:59-07:00&dtend=2010-04-15T23:59:59-07:00&zoom=14&types=AA,Mu,Ro,SA,DP,Na,Al,Pr,Th,VT,Va,Bu,Ar&lat=37.753&hours=0-23&lon=-122.233
Comparatively speaking, there is clearly much more around the Coliseum than what currently happens around the proposed stadium locations in Fremont.
Based on that diagram, the Coliseum is very very safe, obviously. The crime is located a distance away from the complex, not at the complex itself.
From the location, location, location file… it isn’t just the coliseum complex that people are talking about when mentioning crime in the area. It is the seedy neighborhoods in direct proximity on the other side of BART. Oakland Only guys aren’t arguing that the neighborhoods to the East of the Coliseum are hunky dory, are they?
From the perception is reality file… When the only neighborhoods nearby are the kind people are afraid to accidentally end up in, the perception exists that the whole area is horrible (including the Coliseum). Even though most folks who go to games spend all of their time between BART and the estuary and probably never witness any sort of crime.
I have seen three instances of violence at a baseball game in my life. One at AT&T Park and two in the Coliseum. The worst was on the BART ramp when I was walking with my two daughters and my brother and one guy was physically trying to throw the other off the staircase that leads from the BART ramp down to the the Amtrak Station. If he had succeeded, I would have witnessed a murder. Luckily, he didn’t, but the police didn’t get there in time to catch either of the idiots so it wouldn’t show up on any crime map. This particular instance (isolated as it may have been) caused my children to not want to go to A’s games for a long time, but I made them go anyway 🙂
The one at AT&T Park and the other fight at the Coliseum were both during A’s v. Giants games and in the stands. They were young fellows who drank too much beer and took their rooting interest a bit too far. These things happen everywhere I imagine, and should be taken with a grain of salt.
I think that the fear of crime is not crime localized on stadium property, but crime that occurs in the surrounding neighborhoods as people leave the stadium and get into mischief. If someone wants to correlate dates of crimes to events at the coliseum, that might tell you something.
The neighborhood isn’t all that bad. I went to a Warriors game the night they had the Monster Truck Rally in the Coli and the lot was full, so I parked across Hegenberger near the Starbucks. It didn’t even feel scary walking back at 10 p.m., except for the traffic on Hegenberger (I had my 11 year old and a friend in tow). Now once my wife made a wrong turn and wound up on 66th east of San Leandro, she was a little worried.
I lived in Fremont in the late 80’s and it was an okay place to live. Didn’t experience any crime, but hated the cops pulling you over for nit picky traffic infractions. I’ve had my car broken into once in Hayward (where I live now), once in SF and once in Fresno. Never had probs in Oakland and I’ve done business and stuff all over town in good parts and bad. Certain neighborhoods I’ll avoid late at night and that goes for SF, SJ, LA, Fresno and a dozen other big cities. But for in and out after the game, the Coli is okay. I wish they had more stuff and good food nearby. No more Sam’s Hof Brau and no more Malibu Grand Prix anymore. They should put a Harry’s Hof Brau near there. It’s much better than Sam’s anyway, but I’m nostalgic for Sam’s with all the sports stuff on the walls.
I had my car vandalized, once to the tune of about $2-$3000, in Fremont in the early ’90s. Never had it touched at the Coliseum.
IF the A’s get approval and start working on a stadium in San Jose (or Fremont), what do you think will happen in Oakland? I believe they have options till 2013, which presumably a stadium would not be built in time for at the rate they are going.
Would the A’s be able to stay at the Coliseum for the extra time? Or would the JPA/City of Oakland be angry at the A’s and give them the finger like they did when they brought the Raiders back, and refuse to allow them to stay at the Coliseum till the stadium was finished?
After this season, the A’s are on one-year options through the 2013 season. They could conceivably not start work until November 2011 and still have the “comfortable” 30 month period needed to get a ballpark built by Opening Day 2014. So in reality, no decision on anything needs to be made until mid-2011.
Oakland has shown no inclination to cut off its nose to spite its face. If I recall correctly, they negotiated the series of one year options (expressly designed to facilitate a move) while the A’s were actively pursuing Fremont. Plus, if they did anything as idiotic as locking the A’s out (thereby passing on millions in revenue) many of their constituents would be rightly peeved.
This, of course, assumes:
* Financing will be in place.
* Voter approval, if needed, will have happened.
* NIMBY lawsuits either deflected, settled or unfiled.
At the risk of being too esoteric, assuming the A’s play the next 50 seasons at where ever they relocate, how will they be doing in the year 2057? The winds of change definitely swirl. In the late-1950’s, multi-purpose facilities with artificial turf and large seating capacities were the craze. The public mentality preferred the idea of stadiums over ballparks. City planning preferred moving sports facilities to the out-skirts of metropolitan areas to accommodate large parking areas. Symmetry, while practical for a multi-purpose facility, also seemed to be a preferred aesthetic even in baseball-only facilities.
The A’s will have one of the last of this generation of ballparks where ever it ends of being built. I’m not going to venture into speculation-land, but it’s worth thinking about. You have Candlestick/Dodger Stadium kicking off the Modern Era. There was Camden Yards & Jacobs’ Field ushering in the Neo-retro Era. How will Fremont, San Jose and Oakland change by 2057? Which will be best suited for facilitating a sports team?
I, for one, welcome our new alien overlords.
Too esoteric.
Can I just intemperate this as “should the A’s be the first of the new stadium trend or should they be the last of the old trend?”
Oakland community meeting scheduled for May 1st.
Link didn’t work. Here it is again.
http://www.athleticsnation.com/2010/4/16/1426153/may-1st