I stand corrected. Warm Springs is a no go, according to Lew Wolff, because of a lack of a residential component as envisioned in the Pacific Commons plan.
“The entire activity in Fremont was based on the ability to sell residential entitlements,” he said.
And Wolff doesn’t anticipate the market supporting the magnitude of housing envisioned in the ballpark village plan. “I think we missed our opportunity,” he said. “We have to be in an existing downtown.”
Oh well. Now that we’ve heard ownership’s perspective, the circle is complete. (Thanks Matt Artz/Argus)
newballpark.org 
This brings up an interesting point, ML. Can you do a post on financing the ballpark in relation to the different locations? That is, how would a ballpark be financed in Oakland? Fremont? San Jose? What are the differences?
Why would LW wait so long to express his disinterest in Fremont? I can’t imagine people have not been asking.
@Zonis – Financing is just a wild guess at this point. Wolff says that Fremont isn’t viable because of the real estate market, yet SJ is assumed to be viable even though there is no land to develop there. I’d love to know what the secret sauce for financing recipe is, but it hasn’t even been hinted to me.
@gojohn10 – He’s dismissed Fremont multiple times. City Hall kept hope alive just in case he changed his mind.
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If you do an article search over just the past two years, you can find a quote from Wolff saying San Jose is not an option. You can find a quote from Wolff saying Oakland is not an option, and you can find a quote from Wolff saying Fremont is not an option. All in just two years. TWO YEARS.
@Jesse–LW only said SJ was not an option because MLB told him it was not an option. It was BS letter in December of 2009 that opened the door for SJ to be explored. Personally tired of people trashing LW by using sound bites instead of being up front and honest. How many more times do you want him to say he wants to be in SJ and SJ only—-like all of us he is waiting on MLB–thankfully, the city of SJ is alot more strategic and continues to push forward
I said it before and I’ll say it again……..Fremont was never going to happen.
Come on man. The Fremont mayor Bob Weaselman and his city council members are dumber than a sheeeet sandwich. San Jose is where the A’s are welcome. Bring them on.
The A’s could have ended up in SJ, but the economy screwed them. It may have happened if they had started the process 5 years earlier, but then again, they might also have run into a whole lot of problems as they’d have had tons of houses to sell and no buyers.
I was under the impression, ML, that Lew had people/banks willing to finance, along with the naming rights from Cisco, for a potential SJ ballpark, but that those same people would not finance an Oakland Ballpark.
By saying, that the A’s need to be in a downtown area, LW reopens the door for Oakland in my opinion. If he would be 100% convinced about the A’s going to SJ, why isn’t he mentioning San Jose in his statement?
TimmyT,
Welcome to the blog…now start reading because you have a WHOLE LOT of catching up to do!
TimmyT,
Wolff is just dismissing Fremont because it’s not in an urban environment. His past comments have made it pretty clear he prefers San Jose over Oakland.
LW had said, and still says that the Pacific Commons’ 3,000 townhome devel rights would pay most of that staidium’s $500 M ” private ” costs , i.e., he and his investors were not pulling the dollar bills out of their personal piggy banks . So where are those dollars coming from for the similarly ” pvt ” financed SJ park, where an adjacent 200 acres of raw land isn’t in their control like it was at Pac Commons ?
What I can’t understand is why everyone keeps saying that it was community opposition that killed Fremont., when it ‘s obvious that the project died when the real estate market did. Hopefully Wolff has now clarified that for good.
As for San Jose, I just don’t think Selig has enough owners on board yet. (Note that I said YET, Tony!)It’s good to see SJ doing it’s due dilligence with the EIR and such, but I still think everyone’s waiting on the economy (Or Oakland to come up with something)
If I were a banker I’d feel more comfortable loaning 500 million for a park in downtown San Jose or Oakland than Fremont.
It’s got to be San Jose for the A’s in Lew’s mind. Nothing else will do. My guess is if MLB denies the move, that he will sell the team and walk away. Then the whole process of Oakland, Fremont, or someplace else will start again.
@Jay Mac, my money is on your option if SJ is denied. The A’s are going to be sold again and hopefully it will be an owner worthy of fans like us.
“worthy of fans like us?” Showing up for $2 Wednesday does not, in the cool, cold logic of MLB and the MLBPA, a good fan make. Sometimes I think the A’s fanbase doesn’t believe in capitalism, which is fine, but those aren’t the rules the game is played under and even Wally Haas’s family understood that.