Monthly Archives: January 2012

01.23.12
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News for 1/23/12

As usual, we’re in a quiet period leaving the January winter meetings and a month before pitchers and catchers report. At least we have FanFest coming up this weekend. Speaking of FanFest, if folks would like to meetup at FanFest, I think we can meet just inside whichever entrance they use, probably the Plaza Club entrance (lower) or East entrance (upper). I’d love to meet at a great restaurant or bar within walking distance, but… you know the problem there.

Now the news:

  • The Merc’s Tracy Seipel has a roundup of effect the shuttering of redevelopment will have on numerous South Bay redevelopment agencies, including San Jose’s. As has been written previously, SJRA has been winding down over the last year or so, making the shutdown less painful and abrupt than it is for other cities, many of whom are trying to extend the deadline from February 1 to April 15. While San Jose remains in an good position with regard to getting its planning and preparation together on a ballpark, its ability to acquire additional land for the ballpark is gone, leaving A’s ownership to take care of the rest.
  • Also in the Merc, columnist Scott Herhold makes the political calculation that if San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed continues to be aggressive if pushing for a pension reform referendum, he may find a lot of enemies of the ballpark in the form of public employee unions. Personally I know a few who are already opposed and are blaming the ballpark effort, so this is no joke. The simple fact of the matter is that with the unions providing givebacks and lower projected costs leading to a smaller budget deficit, the City is not in the kind of fiscal state of emergency that requires such drastic action on the Mayor’s part. Cooler heads should prevail.
  • St. Petersburg pols think a light rail system connecting their city with Tampa could help jumpstart attendance.
  • Apparently there is a Florida law which dictates that any stadia built with some amount of public funds requires those facilities to be used as homeless shelters when games aren’t being played. This includes huge football stadia, domes like Tropicana Field, even spring training ballparks. Now two legislators are trying to enforce that provision, which until now has remained dormant.
  • Chron’s Leah Garchik has an entertaining account of 49er fans being stuck on a bus in gridlock for three hours even though it was only going within city limits.
  • Added 12:07 PM – Lawrence Berkeley Lab has picked the site for its second campus: Richmond. The land was already owned by UC, so LBL needed to be bowled over to pick a different site in Oakland, Alameda, or Emeryville. In the end, that apparently didn’t happen. Sites proposed by Oakland included the Zhone property across 880 from the Coliseum, and the Oak-to-Ninth site east of Jack London Square.
  • Added 8:30 PM – The City of Oakland released a proposal that would layoff only 105 full-time employees as part of the redevelopment shutdown. That figure would be slightly more than half of the 200 layoffs that were expected.
  • Added 11:35 PM – The Santa Clara County Registrar confirmed that the 4,500 signatures gathered in a petition effort for a new referendum were good. This sets up a situation where the City Council, which has been firmly pro-stadium, will probably reject the petition effort, setting up a court battle. The interesting new twist to this saga is that the current Mayor is Jamie Matthews, a staunch opponent of the stadium plan. Matthews, who replaced Pat Mahan (proponent) last year, was merely a dissenting vote on the Council when the original vote passed in June 2010. Matthews seems emboldened enough now to turn the stadium effort into a real war. Correction 1/25 9:00 PM – Councilmember Jamie McLeod is a dissenter, not Jamie Matthews, who has been a longtime supporter of the stadium plan.

More if/as it comes.

01.19.12
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2014 revisited

Two weeks ago, we laid out the possibilities for the A’s as a team-in-limbo at the Coliseum for 2014. In today’s Trib, reporter Angela Woodall got comments from principals from Alameda County and Oakland, the A’s and Raiders. Try as I might to find a proper analogy for this increasingly awkward situation, I simply can’t. So we’ll go with the comments instead.

A’s President Mike Crowley said he sent what he considered a fair lease extension proposal in June that was met with a “convoluted” response from the Coliseum Joint Powers Authority, which oversees the municipally owned complex.

“So that ended that conversation pretty quickly,” he said. “If we can’t work something out here, we’ll have to find somewhere else to play.

“There are not many options. But we have time. We’re here in 2012, and we’re here in 2013.”

Always eager to open mouth and insert foot, Ignacio De La Fuente “contributes” to the discussion:

“The reality is they’re the ones who have a timeline, not us,” said De La Fuente, referring to the 2013 deadline and the lack of alternatives to the O.co Coliseum in the Bay Area.

That’s strange. The A’s are the only ones with a timeline? Didn’t MLB want the A’s playing in a new venue by 2015? Comments like that and Mayor Jean Quan’s suggestion that Victory Court could be acquired and entitled by November 2014 (making a 2015 opening impossible) aren’t going to convince MLB that Oakland is really serious about this. Couple that with the ongoing discussions with the Raiders, and you get the sense that the A’s aren’t exactly the highest item on the priority list among the Oakland-based sports franchises.

As I mentioned in the previous post, Oakland has little incentive to renew the lease at terms similar to what the teams are paying now. Both teams pay around $1 million each season with some additional revenue thrown in for good measure, not nearly enough to take care of the $20 million in debt service (equally split between Oakland and Alameda County), not to mention the $500k in field conversion costs. The Coliseum Authority is right to angle for more money to cover debt service and costs, but they can’t get too aggressive. If they try to hike the rent to $5 million or more, the A’s will have to consider whether that’s a good deal as opposed to the opportunity cost of improving an existing stadium somewhere else. They’ve already done it at Buck Shaw, adding 3,500 seats and improving the facilities for $4 million. My guess at this point is $3 million for either the A’s or Raiders for 2014, and an option year if new stadium complications arise. That’s a fair amount given the market conditions, which are favorable for Oakland in the short term but not favorable in the long term.

The Raiders are a factor in this as well. Movement in the direction of a new stadium somewhere as opposed to improving the existing Coliseum makes temporarily sharing the Coliseum less impactful for the Raiders. At least the Raiders have an existing NFL stadium option should talks sour with the Coliseum Authority: Candlestick Park. In 2010 the 49ers extended their lease at The ‘Stick through 2014, allowing for a smooth transition to Santa Clara if all of the funding lines up properly. Coliseum City would displace both teams for at least two years (perhaps on a staggered schedule), making it even more difficult to accommodate the A’s and Raiders sufficiently.

Several Oakland officials, including former City Attorney John Russo, have said that the A’s have misrepresented themselves and their intentions when getting the last two extensions signed in 2007 and 2010. That argument never held water to me, because there was always a termination fee that the A’s had to pay if they left Alameda County. If that isn’t an acknowledgement of the situation, I don’t know what is. The Raiders have a similar clause in their lease, yet they aren’t getting vilified nearly as much for talking to/about Santa Clara and Los Angeles. I suppose it all comes down to what the parties care about – getting a deal done as opposed to having good optics about potential deals. If both teams leave Oakland, optics won’t matter one iota and the chickens, in the form of voters, will come home to roost. Then again, maybe not? I suspect there is a large percentage of the populace in Oakland that will be thankful that the City didn’t get screwed Mt. Davis-style all over again. That day of reckoning is drawing closer.

01.17.12
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News for 1/17/12

Today I did an TV interview on Get Real with Brian Stuckey, a show produced out of CreaTV San Jose. CreaTV is a non-profit to whom Comcast has farmed out all of their public access programming for much of the South Bay. The segment will air January 30 on Comcast channel 15 with a web stream simulcast, so my ugly mug won’t show up until then. I doubt anything will have fundamentally changed by then, but you never know.

On to the news.

  • Matier and Ross report that nothing official happened on the A’s-to-San Jose front. That’s true at least when it comes to making a decision or coming to a compromise plan. We set those expectations going into the owners meetings. Yet background work did occur, including the presentation to the executive committee and Selig’s statement that the A’s are now on the front burner. Write that off all you want, it’s movement that wasn’t happening six, nine, twelve months ago. Remember that as incalcitrant the Giants are, there’s always the threat of binding arbitration to force the Giants’ hand. Commissioner Selig won’t give San Jose a greenlight for a vote (for either MLB owners or the city referendum) unless the Giants drop their lawsuit, making the legal action the last real weapon in the Giants’ arsenal to block the A’s efforts.
  • While the Giants are doing everything possible to stop A’s ownership, they’re actively encouraging new arena deals. We all know about their overtures towards the Warriors. Yesterday, Larry Baer gave a pep talk to Sacramento civic leaders pushing for a new downtown Kings arena. Baer said that after four defeats at the ballot box, the effort to get a ballpark going was “worth the fight.” I imagine that Lew Wolff feels the exact same way, Larry.

“It can be done, don’t give up,” Baer said. “You must persevere, you must exercise patience, you must have strong leadership in the private and public sector.”

When a man’s right, he’s right.

  • While the Oakland-only crowd was eager to jump on a graf in the M&R report, they buried the lead: Thanks to the death of redevelopment, the City of Oakland will have to cut 200 jobs and hand out 1,500 pink slips. The Mayor and City Council may also have to take huge cuts in pay on top of cuts already taken last year. How does this affect San Jose? Not that much, since as of the end of 2011 there were only about 10-12 people left in SJRA, with budget cuts and changes already enacted. Not that San Jose actually anticipated the change. SJRA’s fiscal issues forced it shut down early.
  • Less than three months from the opening of the Marlins Ballpark in Miami, and there’s no solution for funding transit options that can bring fans from downtown or the nearest Metrorail (BART-like) station.
  • The Cubs are replacing their right field bleacher section with a Green Monster Seats-style party deck, fronted by one of those new-fangled LED scoreboards.
  • Santa Clara’s City Attorney declared a petition effort by 49er stadium opponents illegal. That doesn’t mean the opponents can’t sue. We’ll see if they have the resources to sue for the right. We’ve seen this happen before.

On a lighter note – since Jeffrey and I will both be at FanFest, would any readers like to do a meetup? Not exactly sure of where we could do it, we can talk through the details.

01.15.12
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Somebody needs to fix the LGO website

Update 8:54 PM – Doug Boxer sent me a note saying that the Let’s Go Oakland website is now back up properly with the graphics and style sheets in tow. Apparently some servers were moved recently and… you know what can happen when you move servers.

Friday while I was doing some site maintenance, I did my occasional check of the links in the sidebar. When I clicked on the Let’s Go Oakland website I saw this:

Something's missing here.

What happened to the colorful background graphic? The Facebook link? The petition form still seems to work, so it’s not as if the site is broken. I don’t get it. Can someone explain what happened?

01.14.12
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The San Diego problem

I frequently look to San Diego for inspiration, whether for the weather, the beer, my brother’s wonderful Rottweiler, Jojo, or major league baseball. No, I’m not saying that the Padres are baseball’s model franchise. Instead, San Diego – the market – is a good comparison to the way the A’s are situated in the Bay Area. Consider the following:

  • With a population of 3 million, San Diego is slightly larger than the East Bay’s population.
  • The gross metropolitan product (GMP) of San Diego is slightly larger than that of the South Bay. (The East Bay is considered part of the San Francisco region from a Census perspective).
  • San Diego has a broad economy, from the military and government services to healthcare to technology.

San Diego will never be able to have a large share of the Southern California television and radio market because of the presence of the two Los Angeles teams. That hasn’t stopped the team from inking a 20-year TV deal with Fox Sports, worth $25-30 million per year. It pales in comparison to the Angels’ new deal and the upcoming Dodgers’ deal, but it’s still a major improvement over the $15 million per year the Padres were getting from broadcast station Cox-4. The deal starts in April.

Of course, this is MLB, where any snag that can be hit will be hit. Commissioner Bud Selig tabled the sale of the Pads from John Moores to Jeff Moorad as other owners raised numerous questions about financing that weren’t satisfactorily answered. Both Selig and Moorad say the snag won’t jeopardize the sale. It sounds like Moorad will take Jim Crane’s recently vacated hot seat, as the sale gets dragged on for several more weeks or months while outgoing majority owner John Moores stews.

According to this summary from Gaslamp Ball, Moorad has all of his money lined up, including the last $100 million of cash in escrow. That’s somewhat impressive, given that Moorad was given an unusual five-year phase-in plan to acquire all of the team. Moorad sold his minority stake in the Diamondbacks, got Bob Piccinini and others (many of whom are Modesto based) in a 12-member investor group, and seemingly got the money three years ahead of schedule. Yet there remain questions about what debt instruments Moorad used to raise the capital, and perhaps additional questions about where some of that TV money is going to go when the Padres start getting paid (some of it may go to pay down debt instead of the team). All of this harkens back to the McCourt debacle, where Frank kept borrowing against the team and related properties to fund an extravagant lifestyle for him and his ex-wife. With new debt rules in places thanks to the new CBA, Moorad’s group may be Exhibit A in ensuring that teams, especially mid-markets, stay true.

A decade ago, Piccinini-Dolich group experienced similar troubles when trying to buy the A’s. They brought in numerous new partners over several months, trying to appease Selig and the owners. Whether you believe they were shafted or there were lingering unanswered questions about how the group would finance and run the team, their bid was denied. Though it’s interesting to consider for a moment that with the makeup of the Padres’ investor group and Moorad’s place as the managing partner, it’s not hard to see that had things turned out differently, Moorad might be the A’s owner now, perhaps phasing out Dolich over time. Would the group have been so steadfast to stay in Oakland, or would Piccinini have become a Ken Hofmann-like weak supporter of the East Bay? Would Moorad, smelling the money in the South Bay, have gotten his agent juices flowing again and pushed for San Jose? We’ll never know. If you want to see how the Piccinini group would’ve operated the A’s with limited resources (like those in San Diego), all you need to do is see what Moorad does in the future with the Padres.

01.13.12
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How the environmental process hurts design

On the northwest corner of West Santa Clara Street and North San Pedro Street in downtown San Jose, Baseball San Jose put up a series of Cisco Field renderings, many of which you’ve already seen. The renderings are blown up to poster size, which allows people to study them for details that may not be readily apparent when viewing small versions in a browser.

Cisco Field as it hugs Autumn Parkway

The aerial view above may be my favorite simply because it fully displays the one distinctive architectural element of the ballpark, the “colonnade” along Autumn Parkway. Maybe the colonnade was designed to integrate the ballpark with the rest of the neighborhood. Thing is, there is no semblance of a neighborhood along this block of Autumn, which is populated by nondescript office buildings and an auto parts store-turned-marijuana dispensary. It’s possible that the colonnade was not borne of some desire to create a snaking, thin colonnade structure. It may have been the product of designing to reduce the visual impact of the stadium. Light will be able to go right through the structure from inside the stadium to the street (and vice-versa), which should in theory make the structure less imposing from the outside. That, coupled with the lower profile of a smaller, double-deck seating bowl, makes Cisco Field the least imposing ballpark since Fenway Park.

As I studied the renderings for the umpteenth time, I couldn’t help but wonder if the CEQA process, which governs all environmental review in the state, artificially constrained the design. When 360 architecture was commissioned to design the ballpark by A’s ownership, they were already dealing with a number of major constraints:

  • An irregularly shaped lot, which could limit the ballpark’s size and field dimensions
  • FAA restrictions on building height
  • Uniform code and standards on setbacks (for sidewalks and such)
  • Budget limitations
  • A desire by civic leaders for a large entry plaza, preferably in the outfield

That’s a lot to design around and come up with something cohesive, which to 360’s credit they’ve done an amazing job conceiving. I still wonder if something more distinctive is possible. In my interview with Lew Wolff, he intimated that the design, which is largely coming from John Fisher, could be moreso. My untrained eye and lack of imagination can’t see where the change can happen other than some façade treatments and cladding, which has given many of the HOK/Populous brick ballparks their faux monolithic look. I think 360 and the A’s can do better.

A place like San Jose, with its many short buildings dating from the 50’s forward, is architecturally drab. Sink Combs Dethlefs was only partly successful in evoking trains via HP Pavilion’s steel siding. The way light shimmers off the panels is beautiful at night and in twilight, during the day it looks a uniformly dull gray. In downtown there are very few truly interesting buildings, except for some built largely with public money such as the Rep, Tech Museum, and Children’s Discovery Museum. Even the latter two were tamed after recently deceased Mexican architect Ricardo Legorreta ran into a brick wall regarding the lively color palette he wanted to use for those buildings. As hearing after hearing, committee after committee waters down vision into a muddled mess, what citizens are left with is something more utilitarian in feel than imaginative. That’s a shame because it only furthers the perception that San Jose is a sleepy, uninspiring place.

If you’re looking for something more imposing at Cisco Field, a brick façade covers the walls behind the seating bowl. It matches well with the long Plant 51 building on the other side of the railroad tracks. Plant 51 was formerly a Del Monte cannery which has been repurposed into lofts and condos.

Pre-existing Plant 51 brick exterior with additional levels in a recessed, modern treatment. Caltrain is on the other side of the wall to the left.

You might think that in the above picture, the upper two levels were photoshopped onto the lower levels. It’s every bit real, and done to reduce the impact of the modern additions compared to the historic original building. The whole lacks unity and despite the intent, does little to preserve the integrity of the building. For me, it actually makes the building weaker.

Panoramic view towards downtown from a townhouse in Cahill Park. Cisco Field's brick façade would fill right half.

With redevelopment dead and its powers significantly curtailed, there are now fewer chances to create bold architecture other than in the private sector. I’m not asking for a Bird’s Nest here, the proportions and size of the stadium won’t allow for that. There is room for something bold and beautiful at Diridon. Aspirational should be achievable. If bold is good enough for the Fishers’ SFMOMA expansion, it’s good enough for Cisco Field.

01.12.12
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Now we’re getting somewhere. Maybe.

So the news today started off with this:

 

All of that – and Lew Wolff’s reaction to Selig’s statements – is in today’s Mark Purdy article. There’s also USA Today baseball writer Bob Nightengale’s reply to Mike Davie’s inquiry:

Sounds like things are moving along. As for an actual resolution? Who knows? Bud Selig’s extension was approved 29-1, the dissenting vote coming from outgoing Padres owner John Moores. Jeff Moorad’s takeover bid has not yet been approved. Why? My guess is money. Say, isn’t Bob Piccinini in that group? He should be able to pump it up lickety split.

01.11.12
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Mesa deal closer, San Jose deal not

Update 11:00 PM – Mark Purdy has a recap of today’s “events”.

MLB.com’s Barry M. Bloom reports that while Commissioner Bud Selig’s three-man panel made a presentation to the Executive Council today, there was nothing new to report on the Oakland/San Jose situation. The panel has presented information at different intervals, so this is no surprise. However, remember that everything comes from the top down: panel presents to Executive Committee, then the issue (probably) goes to the Relocation Committee, then to all of the owners for a vote (if it gets that far).

Spring training homes have no expressed territorial rights, so Lew Wolff’s efforts to put together a deal with Mesa at HoHokam Stadium continue unabated. According to Bloom, improvements to Hohokam would cost $10-15 million, with the city footing 60% of the bill and the A’s 40%. I look forward to seeing the plans, and will dissect them as you’d expect me to when the time comes.

01.11.12
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Owners Meetings and FanFest Open Thread

Update 5:44 PM – These tweets from Sports Business Journal’s Eric Fisher look important:

Now the original post:

Again, I don’t expect anything to happen at the owners’ meetings other than Bud Selig getting his extension and some rules-related changes. Yet there is this fresh off the wire from Mark Purdy:

It’s probably nothing. Or is it?

There is other news. Today I was asked to participate in the Blogger Event at FanFest. Naturally, I accepted the invite. Interviews with players and such are not where this blog usually goes, but I appreciate what the A’s are doing to work with the blogging community, so it’s incumbent upon me to reciprocate. Any ideas on how I should do this? Does anyone with a video camera want to tag along? I’m open to suggestions.

In the meantime, read Wendy Thurm’s (@hangingsliders) excellent post at SBNation detailing a very reasonable solution to compensate the Giants for territorial rights.

01.10.12
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News for 1/10/12

Didn’t expect to have so much news this week, and it’s only Tuesday. Here we go.

  • MLB Commissioner Bud Selig is expected to accept a two-year extension to his current term, which expires after the 2012 season. If Selig looks at the A’s as unfinished business, then it’s good he’s staying on instead of throwing the A’s over the fence for the next commissioner.
  • U.S. Department of Transportation officials were expected today to recommend $900 million in federal matching funds for the BART-to-Silicon Valley Phase I extension, which would terminate at the San Jose Flea Market. The decision would then move to Congress to approve, which was characterized by Gary Richards as a “formality”.
  • During the Raiders press conference introducing new GM Reggie McKenzie, team owner Mark Davis fielded a few questions about the stadium situation. He maintained a similar stance to his father about stadium prospects: “We’re going to try to get something done here (in Oakland) but if we can’t we have to get something done somewhere.” Oakland, Santa Clara, and LA are under consideration, without Davis committing to any specific site. The hiring of McKenzie will allow Davis to focus on the stadium search. One thing I took away from the presser: Mark Davis is committed to owning the team in the long run and considers it his family.
  • Oracle is opening a new office in downtown San Jose, in the same building as accounting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers. The office could have 265-440 employees. Oracle owns the building as part of its acquisition of BEA Systems.
  • SF Planning Commissioner Mike Antonini has been working with architecture firm HKS (Rangers Ballpark, Miller Park) and a financial services firm who could provide up to $600 million for the forlorn 49ers Hunters Point stadium project. Antonini is trying to raise $1 million from private sources to complete a study.
  • Oakland’s City Council is discussing (right now!) how to deal with the end of redevelopment. There is talk about a successor agency, which would be very limited in scope (affordable housing mostly). Oakland North has an excellent infographic explaining where the redevelopment budget goes. Oakland appears to have two choices: A) allow the successor agency to be created but not with enough money to properly operate, or B) let it expire completely and lose all control or powers normally attributed to redevelopment agencies. They have until Friday to make their decision.

More as it comes. Owners meetings start tomorrow, with the A’s not on the agenda. The Merc’s Tracy Seipel has an overview of the current situation.