Category Archives: Athletics

08.24.12
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Port gives Howard Terminal thumbs up, warns of hurdles

The Trib’s Matt Artz wrote today that the Port of Oakland is “very interested” in converting Howard Terminal into a ballpark/commercial site. That’s a big step. Having the Port and Matson onboard is a good start. Now Oakland boosters have to get SSA Terminals onboard, which is suing the Port over contract terms. I wrote about that and other challenges two weeks ago. It’s worth a read if you hadn’t seen it it.

Artz also brilliantly sums up Oakland’s broader challenge at the moment.

With A’s owner Lew Wolff determined to move his team to downtown San Jose, Oakland needs to show baseball officials that it too has a viable site for the team that could persuade baseball owners against pursuing the very touchy subject of rescinding the San Francisco Giants’ territorial rights to San Jose.

Viable, unfortunately, is a term that is prone to subjectivity. Knowing that, let’s try to break it down into what MLB’s goals are in its neverending exploration:

  • Can the site be acquired cheaply and quickly? That’s an unknown as long as the SSA issue remains in litigation. Otherwise, it’s a site that can be configured and prepped fairly quickly, as long as cleanup isn’t too lengthy or expensive.
  • Overall, is it cheaper to pursue this site than to build in San Jose and compensate the Giants? Another unknown. The only thing we have a decent idea about right now is what it will cost to build in San Jose (including remaining land acquisitions). There’s still much to determine regarding Howard Terminal. Will infrastructure costs be borne by the club, the City, or some combination of the two? Will the cost be too expensive for either to bear, as was apparently the case with Victory Court? Plus we have no idea what proper compensation is for the Giants.
  • Will the risk that comes with Howard Terminal be too great or manageable? It’s unfair to Oakland, but when you combine the lackluster attendance history with the poor corporate base compared to San Jose, it has to be asked. How can an individual team such as the A’s pull this off, especially if they are not expected to get significant monetary help from either MLB or the City, County, or other public entity?

In the end, it’s all a big cost-benefit analysis. And if it means Oakland, I’ve gotten accustomed to taking the Capitol Corridor train to day games. It’s no sweat off my back. This is when we find out if and how Oakland can put together a good deal for the A’s and for MLB. This is how we define viable.

08.23.12
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News for 8/23/12

Items are starting to pile up, so it’s time to let loose.

  • Yesterday I went to an A’s game at the Coliseum, followed by a River Cats game at Raley Field. While I paid for a $2 seat in Oakland, I ended up sitting along the covered (upper) part of the plaza level near the A’s bullpen, section 125. A regular-priced ticket there is $24. My ticket at Raley was a front row seat next to the River Cats dugout that cost $27 including Ticketmaster fees.

Major League vs. Minor League

River Cats manager Darren Bush likes to plant himself WAY up the 3rd base line.

Kings fans can save their anger for April, when the window for the Maloofs to apply for a move will officially open

  • A burgeoning effort to overhaul state’s often restrictive CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act) laws was tabled by Senate leader Darrell Steinberg earlier today. Business interests and trades unions rallied together to bring the issue to the floor, which would have pitted moderates against environmentalists within the Democratic party. The push was started by SVLG (Silicon Valley Leadership Group), which provided little more than guidance in how the law should be changed. For now the two sides are far apart: the moderates consider changes to CEQA to be common sense modernization and a reduction of red tape, whereas environmentalists see the changes as a gutting of CEQA. Steinberg pushed the matter out to the 2013 legislative session. We’ll follow it closely, as it could have a huge impact in how cities and developers plan projects. [LA Times/Michael J. Mishak]
  • The Detroit-Wayne County Stadium Authority is refinancing $61 million in outstanding bonds for Comerica Park. Refinancing should drop the interest rate from 5.75% to 3%. The article is a good read because it chronicles how many times the public body failed in previous attempts to refinance the debt, which is important to know in light of the idea that the Oakland Coliseum JPA and the San Francisco Giants are looking to refinance their own respective stadium debt. [Crain’s/Bill Shea]
  • Speaking of the CEQA process, the Warriors’ proposed SF arena now has its own Mayor-appointed citizens advisory committee. [SFGate/John Coté]
  • The Rays will, in fact, see a presentation about a developer’s plan for a new ballpark within St. Petersburg, yet closer to Tampa. It’s a start. [Tampa Bay Times/Mark Puente]
  • The America’s Cup World Series is happening this week along the Marina Green. It’s a good dry run for the bigger 2013 America’s Cup races. There are plenty of places to watch the action for free. Races run through the weekend. [SFGate/Neal J. Riley]
  • Finally, the Earthquakes are announcing something stadium-related before their Saturday game against Columbus. It’ll be in the form of a press conference at 6 at Buck Shaw. Perhaps a groundbreaking date?

More as it comes.

08.22.12
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PSA: No baseball on the Sabbath

That weird scheduling quirk we talked about at the beginning of the year is coming up this weekend, so consider this a heads up. Thanks to some political party’s convention, the A’s-Rays series was pushed up a day, from Thursday to Saturday. Sunday is a most unusual scheduled off day.

Normally, teams going from the West Coast to the East Coast are allowed an off day to cover travel, whether they decide to leave immediately after a game (road teams) or use the off day for the transcontinental flight (often the A’s). The CBA explicitly calls for this, though every team has a number of exceptions it can use that have to be approved by the league. The A’s are one of the more hospitable WC franchises in that they prefer to have 12:15 starts on Wednesdays, the better to get a move on.

With the A’s having to fly out immediately after today’s game, there’s already a little bit of havoc. A’s beat writers Susan Slusser, Joe Stiglich, and Jane Lee had no choice but to take commercial flights before today’s game, having to deal with transfers to get to TPA. I suppose it just adds a little more flavor to a week of upheaval (Weeks’ demotion yesterday, Colon’s PED suspension today).

As for the event kicking our elephants out of Tropicana Field for another set of elephants, it’s not specifically part of the convention, which will take place at Tampa’s St. Petersburg Times Forum starting on Monday. Instead it’s a welcome party for delegates at the Trop. Whoop-dee-freaking-doo. The Rays are in the middle of a homestand, so no pain on their part.

Apologies in advance to those who observe the Sabbath on Saturday, or who don’t celebrate any Sabbath at all. Oh who am I kidding? Even Sabbath celebrates baseball!

08.21.12
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“Oakland Loves Its Sports Teams” Press Conference on 8/27

Post to the Save Oakland Sports Facebook page earlier tonight – The City of Oakland is putting on a press conference/rally in Frank Ogawa Plaza on Monday, August 27 at 11:00 AM. Here’s the description of the event:

Mayor Quan – joined by regional elected officials, business leaders and sports fans – will share details on the “Oakland Loves Its Sports Teams” Week.

The “Oakland Loves Its Sports Teams” Week will salute the Oakland A’s and Oakland Raiders for being irreplaceable civic treasures that add significantly to the economy, identity, pride and culture of Oakland, Alameda County and the entire East Bay region.

Gotta show the teams some love, especially when both have leases that run out after their respective 2013 seasons. The blurb is right about one thing: the teams are irreplaceable.

Note – It appears that I have been taken off the S.O.S. email chain. Perhaps they chose to close ranks.

08.20.12
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I want to go to there

…

I could stay here forever. Or at least until the sprinklers come on.

So there I was lying on the Coliseum grass, just beyond the infield rim where Jemile Weeks normally mans 2B. The fog had invaded, covering up any stars. I saw closeup how well Clay Wood and his staff covered up all of the evidence of a football game just five days prior. Temperatures had dipped below 60 and the breezes were starting to kick up. At least a thousand fellow A’s fans were assembled on the field, most with blankets, some clutching cups of coffee. It was 10 o’clock, and we were waiting for Moneyball.

The movie itself was introduced by Scott Hatteberg, and just as we did in the pregame ceremony several hours earlier, we cheered players as they were announced or as they appeared on the smallish portable screen. Sound bounced off the still concrete bowl, creating an eerie, unintended echo effect. The stadium lights darkened, and for a moment everything was still, everything was perfect.

I’ve probably seen Moneyball seven or eight times now (three in theaters plus I own a Blu-ray combo pack), so the movie itself wasn’t the attraction. I didn’t go to the red carpet premiere at the Paramount, so this was as much about community as anything else. Yet I distanced myself from people and stayed way back, in an open spot as close to the cordoned off infield as possible. Every so often I would stand up and look back at the old seating bowl, where the safety lights were on and the media had cleared out of the press boxes. For better or worse, this is my second home, I said to myself.

The infield and warning track were off limits to the faithful. From what I could see in fans’ faces, no one cared.

As the movie ended, I gathered all of my things and, mindful of how long I had been there and how emotional the day was, felt absolutely exhausted. Many friends who I had seen in the Coliseum had left long ago. In light and in darkness Mount Davis stood, impressive in scale and magnitude. For once I didn’t hate the edifice. It was just sitting there, alone and somewhat forlorn, no lights on. As I started to walk toward the stairs I thought to myself, I wish one of those suites was my apartment so that I could head up there and go to sleep instead of driving home.

If I had the money and someone built it, I’d live in an apartment or condo overlooking an A’s ballpark. Not one with a postage stamp sized view like in San Diego, detached from the action. A place that was as far as the upper Mt. Davis suites are now, with a balcony. I could wake up, observe the grass get cut and the mound manicured over a cup of Aeropressed coffee. Watch as tour groups came through and wave to them in my robe smoking jacket. Head downstairs, where there would probably be some retail component, for a sandwich or pastry. And watch the game from the balcony, or head down to one of the field box seats that were mandatory to buy with the apartment lease or condo purchase.

None of this is possible at the Coliseum, of course, for myriad reasons. The Raiders need those suites to be used as suites. Mt. Davis was never built with this kind of mixed use in mind. It’s something I can still dream about at a new ballpark. Given the cost of developing a park these days, it’s not a bad way to help with the financing. Follow me on this.

When NASCAR was at its peak before the crash, several tracks built condo complexes that overlooked the action. Most often, it was rich racing aficionados who bought up the units, forgoing an RV weekend in the paddock for an pied-à-terre above the track. To me that sounds crazy, considering that most tracks will get one or two races a year plus various minor events. It doesn’t compare with 81-82 games plus concerts and whatever else the team can attract to a stadium. Yet the closest thing to a residential component we’ve ever seen is the hotel at Rogers Centre (formerly SkyDome), now a Marriott Renaissance property. Lew Wolff once had an interest in it, so he should know quite well how it’s run.

20120820-200104.jpg

Bay Street in Emeryville, a mixed residential/commercial development

If someone were to experiment with this kind of feature, one can’t expect a big, 400-foot long apartment building with 200 units facing the ballpark. There’d probably be a “boutique” style building with no more than 40 units, 20 facing the ballpark, 6 stories tall, roof deck with a pool on top. How would they be sold? Upfront as condos with high HOA dues, or extremely expensive apartments? Maybe fans who aren’t one-percenters could enter a lottery for one or two units, or perhaps for a year-long lease. 25 years ago the apartments on Waveland and Sheffield outside Wrigley Field could be rented by an average family. Now they’re all corporate suites, better than the ones inside the park. In either condo or apartment form the units could provide a not-small financing piece, up to $30 million towards the ballpark’s total construction cost after factoring in overhead. That’s about as much as anyone could expect from a seat license sale, and it wouldn’t come with the uncertainty or negative vibe associated with PSLs.

Taken as part of the growing number of luxury options, these could be considered as either complementary or competitive with regular suites. The biggest difference would be the view and the access, since suites are not normally available 24/7 the way a housing unit has to be. One could even see a player or two take advantage of the convenience, though he’d have to make sure his curtains are drawn at the proper moments. That is, unless he likes the attention.

08.20.12
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Sharks ownership speaks out

Two great pieces on Sharks ownership by the Merc’s David Pollak. Regarding the team, lead owner execs Kevin Compton and Stratton Sclavos remain committed to keeping payroll near salary cap levels ($70 million in 2013) despite the ownership group losing money on an annual basis. We don’t have access to their books so we can’t validate ownership’s claims, but they are saying that they regularly make cash calls of the ownership group. If that’s the case then there is something to what they’re saying.

The second piece is a wide-ranging Q&A covering multiple off-field topics such as the possibility of competition in the form of a Warriors arena in San Francisco, a looming lockout, and a reaction to the A’s heading 35 miles south.

On the possibility of the A’s moving to San Jose:

Sclavos: “You can always look at these things as a problem or an opportunity. In our discussions, we’re led to believe there’s probably opportunity there for us. We do a lot of things really well in sports marketing and ticket sales and sponsorship sales. We think those assets could be leveraged other places.”

Compton: “Our big concern would be to see that the fan experience doesn’t change as far as parking and traffic and things like that. We’re not going to compromise on that.”

You have to think that the two ownership groups have been talking a good deal about how to share the sandbox that is downtown San Jose. It’s good to hear, and a stark contrast from the bile spewing from the Giants. Compton also had an honest take on the impact of a SF arena. It hadn’t occurred to me that HP Pavilion is now the 6th oldest arena in the league. It makes me wonder what could done to improve the arena in order to raise revenues. More clubby stuff in the rafters like MSG? Changes to the seating bowl?

Compton’s concerns about parking were partly addressed when the Sharks struck a deal with the City for a garage north of the arena. The approved Diridon ballpark EIR calls for no new parking to be built at the ballpark aside for a small amount dedicated for team use. I’m more interested in what could happen with the old San Jose Water property, since that contains the largest lot in the immediate area aside from the arena lots.

This really makes me hope that there isn’t a lengthy work stoppage in the NHL this season. It would be a shame if the only hockey we had to watch this fall were at the Cow Palace.

There’s also a sidebar listing all members of the Sharks ownership group.

08.17.12
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The other kind of walkoff

The A’s made hay in July via a series of walkoff wins. It’s fitting that the team is capitalizing on a phenomenon coined by former Athletic Dennis Eckersley, almost karmic (I’d rather have won the ’88 WS). The A’s soccer brethren, the Earthquakes, have also gotten into the act, stringing together several winning and tying goals in the waning moments of numerous games this season. Let’s just say that the organization is no stranger to theatrics.

That comes in stark contrast to the neverending ballpark struggle, which has entered its 41st month according to our counter, but really has gone on for more than twice that long if you count back to when the Wolff/Fisher group took ownership. And if you believe Jayson Stark’s take coming out of the owners meetings this week, there’s no end in sight:

For about the 78th consecutive meeting of baseball’s problem-solving owners, there was no resolution this week of the A’s-Giants standoff. But if it wasn’t clear before now, it’s more obvious than ever that, in the words of one baseball official, that moving the A’s to San Jose is, most likely, “never going to happen.”

One sports attorney who has looked into this told Rumblings that the Giants have “a hell of a case” — centered around a document signed by the commissioner defining their territorial rights to include San Jose. And that’s critical, because any move by the A’s, or by the sport, to ignore or override those territorial rights could open a messy can of larvae for baseball.

How? Well, if the Giants’ territorial rights were suddenly deemed to no longer apply, it could set a precedent that might inspire some other team to attempt to move to New York or Southern California, by arguing the territorial rights of the Yankees, Mets, Dodgers and Angels were no longer valid, either.

So if the A’s aren’t bound for San Jose, what is likely to happen to them? Behind the scenes, baseball people are predicting they’ll eventually have to give up on this battle and settle for a new, Pittsburgh-size park in Oakland — and then do their best to beat up on the Giants in interleague play.

Stark didn’t articulate how this ballpark would be paid for. It’s a legitimate question. Oakland isn’t alone here. Field of Schemes’ Neil deMause pointed out in a recent Slate article that Seattle is facing the same dilemma.

Stanford economist Roger Noll pegs the operating profits of a typical arena at somewhere between $20 and $30 million a year. That could be enough—barely—to pay off $400 million or so in arena debt. But then Hansen and his as-yet-unnamed investors will still need to put down a huge amount of money to purchase an NBA franchise to play there. If every penny of revenue is going to pay off construction debts, that will leave nothing to offer his moneymen as return on their investment. “The gross revenues of an NBA team in Seattle could not possibly be sufficient,” says Noll, to cover the costs of both building an arena and buying a team.

Replace Seattle with Oakland and “NBA team” with “Athletics” and you have the first half of our local quandary. The crux of the argument to keep the A’s in Oakland is that some sugar daddy ownership group (Don Knauss & Co.) will swoop in, buy the A’s from Wolff/Fisher ($500 million) and pay for a new ballpark ($500-600 million). Using deMause’s corollary, which we’ve espoused here repeatedly, how does this new ownership make money, or even prevent themselves from being buried in debt? Even in San Jose a $500 million ballpark will require tons of upfront commitments to ensure that Wolff/Fisher aren’t leveraged to the hilt.

Moreover, this ongoing stalemate does no one any favors except the Giants, who must love the status quo – except for that pesky drug suspension thing. If the other big market teams are truly afraid of breaking precedent, then the naysayers are right, there is no way to San Jose. We’ve never heard anything directly from any owner to confirm this, so it’s just more grist for the mill. Funny thing is that there are protections in the Major League Constitution to keep the two-team markets safe. From Doug Pappas’ old article dissection the Major League Rules (emphasis mine):

Under Rule 1(c), either league can move into a territory belonging to a club in the other league, so long as (a) 3/4 of the affected league’s teams consent; (b) the two parks are at least five air miles apart unless the two clubs mutually agree otherwise; (c) the newcomer pays the existing club $100,000 plus half of any previous indemnification to invade the territory; and (d) the move leaves no more than two clubs in the territory. This provision dates to late 1960, when it was adopted to establish the terms for the expansion Los Angeles Angels to play in the territory claimed by the Dodgers in 1958.

That leaves Boston and Philadelphia as the only “vulnerable” markets, and any move to either city would face just as many political and logistical obstacles as the A’s face going to San Jose, if not more. Even with that technicality out of the way, the big market owners may be looking at T-rights as sacrosanct and untouchable, nevermind the actual language.

Bringing us back to Stark’s blurb, what can Wolff do? He seems content to play the nice guy role among the owners and not push the matter. If the Giants are lined up looking to sue, the A’s can do the same. San Jose is putting together its own legal resources should a decision come down not in their favor. But there is one maneuver, one trump card that Wolff can play that we’ve only skirted around, and it’s fairly simple.

Wolff could refuse to negotiate a Coliseum lease extension.

Fitting that this last bit of “inaction” could finally force action. It worked for the Minnesota Vikings. It most certainly won’t get the kind of results Zygi Wilf got (a publicly financed stadium), but it would at least force the powers that be to act. It would absolutely burn the last bridge Wolff had with Oakland and would be the worst PR move ever on top of many other missteps, but as we’ve seen in the Vikings’ case, it’s practically standard operating procedure for owners looking to get new stadia. Oakland pols have bragged that the A’s have nowhere to play besides the Coliseum. Do they really want to make that bluff?

Wolff’s refusal would create a nightmare for MLB. MLB could proceed one of two ways, either A) rule once and for all on the T-rights matter and let the franchise move forward, or B) try to assume control of the A’s by alleging that Wolff was not acting as a proper caretaker of the franchise in the market. The A’s can’t be contracted through the rest of the current CBA. Two teams would have to be contracted as a matter of practice and the Rays are locked into their lease, making contraction impossible in the near term. If MLB rules for the Giants, then at least Wolff would be able to decide if he wants to build in Fremont or give up completely and sell the team. And if MLB rules for the A’s, then Wolff will have gotten what he wanted, although he had to be a dick to Selig and the Lodge to make it happen, and Selig would have to deal with the Giants’ legal onslaught.

Selig could try to buy Wolff’s silence by subsidizing an East Bay stadium (also unprecedented) or having the other owners buy out the Wolff/Fisher group, which won’t be cheap. Wolff/Fisher are in a strong position in that they don’t have to sell, at any price if they don’t like.

Now, if MLB were to try to wrest control of the A’s from Wolff, the league would land in litigation hell. Wolff could easily point to Selig’s committee’s 41 months with no plan or decision, and it would drag out for a long time. Unlike the McCourt-Dodgers fiasco, the Wolff/Fisher group are more than solvent (underneath it all A’s ownership is the 4th richest in baseball). T-rights would finally be dragged out into the open, in court. Meanwhile, MLB would have to step in and negotiate lease terms with Oakland/Alameda County for some unknown period. They can’t go around Wolff to negotiate a lease while he’s still the franchise’s control person, since he still has to sign on the line which is dotted. MLB can’t get an injunction on Wolff not doing something. Can they force him to negotiate a lease? We’ll see. Beyond the Bay Area, there will be at least one mayor who’ll look at the ending lease and make a play for the A’s, even if the resources aren’t there. Effectively the A’s would turn into the Expos, a team in limbo for an indeterminate period.

All of that’s possible from Wolff making a simple declaration. He doesn’t have to make it now. He could wait until the end of the 2013 season if he likes. The chaos would put a great toll on the franchise and the fanbase, and you’d have to wonder if, in the end, it’s worth it. Walking away from the lease could be the first domino. At least someone would be playing. We’ve been talking about post-2013 for a while now. The closer we get to that point without a resolution, the more likely someone’s going to make a move out of desperation. Often large bureaucratic organizations don’t make moves until things reach crisis mode. If Selig wanted to end his tenure without drama, this definitely wouldn’t be a way to do it.

08.16.12
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Nothing to see here, move on

The owners meetings came and went with barely a peep. The only major news was the slam-dunk approval of the Padres sale. A single, solitary update on the state of the A’s came via MLB.com’s Barry M. Bloom:

 

That’s it, as expected. Good thing the game starts in a few minutes.

08.10.12
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News for 8/10/12

We’re overdue for a news roundup. Now seems like a good time for one.

From BANG’s Joe Stiglich:

Last week’s visit to Oakland and San Jose by Bud Selig’s three-man panel foreshadowed this.

Update 1:04 PM – Stiglich has a writeup with quotes from Wolff, such as:

“It’s up to the commissioner’s office,” Wolff said. “… This is a process that unfortunately is taking longer than I hoped, but it’s a fair process.” 

Other news:

  • Janet Marie Smith, who oversaw the construction of Camden Yards and the renovation of Fenway Park, is moving out west to Los Angeles to take a similar role with the Dodgers. If her previous work is any indication, she will keep it classy all the way. [Dodgers press release]
  • NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman has set a deadline of September 15 to wrap up labor negotiations before the league imposes a lockout. The NHL and NHLPA are always playing catchup with the other leagues in terms of CBAs. They imposed a 57% player share in the last agreement as other leagues were dropping towards the 50% mark. Now the NHL wants to drop it to 46%. It’s going to be a long winter. [AP]
  • A developer is proposing a ballpark for the Tampa Bay Rays in the Gateway area of St. Petersburg, just over the bridge from Tampa. St. Pete’s stance has been to not allow the Rays to get out of their lease at Tropicana Field unless a new stadium were conceived in St. Pete, not Tampa. No financial details were available. [Tampa Tribune/Michael Sasso]
  • The 49ers and the City of Santa Clara settled a lawsuit with a County oversight board. $30 million in redevelopment money was at stake. In order to keep local school budgets balanced, the 49ers won’t get the $30 million for several years. Seems fair. [SJ Mercury News/Mike Rosenberg]
  • Get used to metal detectors at NFL games starting this season. [Oakland Raiders]
  • Speaking of the Raiders, they are using the league’s new 85% measure to determine sellouts this season. The way it works, a team has to sell out 85% of its non-premium seats by the usual deadline (normally Thursday for a Sunday game) in order for a game not to be subject to a blackout. The catch is that any tickets sold between the 85% and 100% marks are subject to higher revenue sharing. Teams like the Raiders and Bucs chose to use the new standard, the Bills and Jags went with the old standard, which required all non-premium seats to be sold by the deadline.
  • The City of Industry approved a deal to buy 600 acres within city limits for up to $26.7 million. The land is where the somewhat-forgotten Ed Roski/Majestic Realty stadium would be located. The parties still have to scramble to find a proper replacement for now-evaporated redevelopment funding. [Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/Ben Baeder]
  • MLB’s postseason schedule has been released (knock on wood). [Biz of Baseball/Maury Brown]

More if it comes.

08.09.12
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Challenges Facing Howard Terminal

After yesterday’s game, I headed up to Howard Terminal yet again to snoop around and take a few more pictures. I also read up on SSA Terminals/SSA Marine’s lawsuit against the Port of Oakland. This post will contain an analysis of both.

First, let’s start off a bird’s eye view of the site, with a few items labeled for further discussion.

howardterminal_birdseye-labeled-sm

Overview of Howard Terminal and Jack London Square

From right to left you see:

  • Jack London Square in the southeast corner. A one-block stretch of Broadway is visible.
  • One block over from the heart of JLS is Washington St, followed by Clay St. Broadway and Washington extend to downtown Oakland. Clay does not.
  • At the end of Clay Street is the Ferry Terminal, the Ferry Landing (10 Clay St.) commercial building and a small public plaza and green space.
  • A narrow promenade (10 feet wide in an important stretch) runs along the shoreline west to Howard Terminal. If a ballpark were built at Howard Terminal, the lightly-used promenade would have to be widened as it’s the safest and best pedestrian access from the Ferry Terminal and the JLS shoreline and marina.
  • Complicating matters is the Oakland Fire Department EMS Station, which is home to Fire and Police boats. The station would have to be reconfigured to widen the promenade.
  • The blue and red stars indicate the rough locations of ballpark sites. The blue star is the site I identified on Tuesday. It would probably be the most expensive site because it’s all piers, not land, and would make the foundation more expensive. The red star is the site surveyed in the 2001 HOK study. It is inside the original shoreline.
  • North of the blue star is the power plant, which can’t be moved without incurring great expense.
  • The green lines are possible locations for pedestrian and vehicular overpasses, lining up with MLK Way and Market Street, respectively. Both connect with North and West Oakland, as well as 980 and 880. At Howard Terminal, the streets are 900 feet apart.

Now I’ll explain why the overpasses (green lines) will be needed. A couple of pictures for comparison:

howard_term-26-view_east

View East from The Embarcadero and Clay toward Jack London Square

howard_term-26-view_east

View East from The Embarcadero and Clay toward Jack London Square

howard_term-27-view_west

View west from The Embarcadero and Clay towards Howard Terminal

These tracks cannot be moved. They are a big part of what makes the port truly intermodal. If 40,000 people are going to cross these tracks and The Embarcadero to get to a Howard Terminal ballpark, it is paramount that safe methods for getting those people across are implemented. Gates and traffic cops aren’t going to stop stupid, drunken fans from playing chicken with an Amtrak or freight train. Unlike the light rail trains run by SF Muni outside AT&T Park, these trains don’t stop quickly even if they’re traveling fairly slowly.

The second picture also shows that there is little streetscape west of Jack London Square. The westbound car lane ends in another block at Jefferson, and the track area isn’t paved. It would make the most sense to completely shut down The Embarcardero near Howard Terminal to all traffic other than trains for a 6-8 hour window on game days.

How then, do you get people across The Embarcadero? It’s for all intents and purposes a moat. By building bridges, of course! The scale and number of bridges would be driven by the amount of parking that is made available adjacent to the ballpark. And that is largely driven by the amount of parking available in and around Jack London Square. Over 3,000 spaces in lots and garages are present, plus at least 500 on-street parking spots. However, only 1,250 spaces are within 1/3 mile of either HT ballpark site. Extend the radius to 2/3 mile, which is sort of the fringe distance that people are willing to walk, and you get 7,000.

parking_comparison

Comparison of parking near ballpark sites

Additional parking may be made available under the BART alignment or on street, but it’s clear that parking near Howard Terminal is a clear site deficiency. The obvious place for a new facility is next to the ballpark. 16 acres would yield 2,000 spaces, which should serve the dual purposes of filling the needs of the ballpark and satisfying current JLS tenants (restaurants, Yoshi’s, movie theater) that have depended on the existing infrastructure. For that much parking, whether it’s all surface or new garages, two entrances would be required, or rather, two overpasses. That’s why I drew the two overpass paths. Market Street is the main entrance to Howard Terminal and is already set up to handle heavy traffic with four lanes. MLK Way is also four lanes. The overpasses would also create two additional pedestrian overcrossings, netting four total along The Embarcadero.

The price for the overpasses? Around $10 million each. Add that to the promenade expansion, parking construction, and other site improvements to make Howard Terminal hospitable for a ballpark.

howard_term-19-corridor1

Promenade from Ferry Terminal to Howard Terminal

Before we get ahead of ourselves, it’s important to note that no ballpark at Howard Terminal will be possible without SSA Marine/SSA Terminal vacating the premises. And while Matson (partnered with SSA) provided support to Don Knauss in his efforts to either build a ballpark on the waterfront or buy the A’s (or both), it doesn’t appear that Howard Terminal operator SSA will be easy to move. While SSA’s container business is down in Oakland, the company is not blaming the downturn on the way Howard Terminal is configured. Instead, SSA has a problem with its lease at Berths 57-59, just over a mile west of Howard Terminal (Berths 67-68). SSA is suing the Port of Oakland over alleged violations of the federal Shipping Act. SSA alleges that the Port is giving preferential treatment to Ports America, a competing terminal operator at the Outer Harbor, Berths 20-26. SSA’s claim is that Ports America (PAOHT) is leasing its site for 45% less per acre than SSA, while not having to contribute much to infrastructure improvements. Due to the more expensive lease, SSA is saying that it’s losing business to lower-cost competitors like PAOHT to the tune of $46 million per year.

Renegotiating SSA’s lease to make it on par with PAOHT could negatively affect port revenue $10 million annually (offset somewhat by new lease terms), and while the two sides have talked they haven’t sat down to negotiate. The lawsuit will be three years old in December. SSA is being coy about what they want out of this besides a lease. The ballpark gives them a very convenient trump card that it wouldn’t otherwise have, now that we know that Howard Terminal is the only site in Oakland that MLB is investigating. It’s a very tough spot for the Port and City to be in. If the City doesn’t get the Port to renegotiate the lease along SSA’s terms, Howard Terminal is dead before it begins. It can’t kick SSA off the property as the lease goes until 2017, with two possible 5-year extensions that SSA will probably decline. Plus any changes to Howard Terminal like the ones I described previously have to work for the other tenants of the Port like PAOHT and other shippers, making the Port every bit as beholden to its tenants as it is to the City (from which the Port operates independently anyway). And if you want to make things even more complicated, the City of Oakland wants out of a bad bond hedge deal with Goldman Sachs. Who’s a major investor in Carrix, the parent company of SSA? Goldman Sachs.

Cost estimation is difficult, but back-of-the-napkin math has infrastructure at $50 million depending on site and foundation, and an ongoing loss of $10 million in fees to the Port with a redone lease and relocation costs. From the looks of things, SSA might play ball if they get their lease redone. If not, what’s their incentive? This reminds me a lot of what the City of San Jose did with AT&T on a rezoning deal near Valley Fair. Considered a quid pro quo deal, we may never know if it really is one unless a ballpark in San Jose is built. SSA appears to be in line for a similar enriching.