Category Archives: Oakland

05.11.24
by

Let’s Play Two for the Last Time

Last fall, when the 2024 schedule was released in preliminary form, I immediately circled May 8 on my calendar. As you probably saw on Wednesday, on May 8 the baseball version of an eclipse took place: a natural doubleheader. Not a doubleheader that included a makeup game from a previous rainout, or the dreaded day-night or split doubleheader that requires two separate admissions. No, this was old school single ticket double-dip, the second game coming thirty minutes after the first game ends. For me, it offered a satisfying coda to my time as an Oakland A’s fan. My first A’s game was itself a doubleheader in 1988 in which the A’s dominated the Cleveland Indians. And while the 2024 A’s is not the dominant force the Bash Brothers-era A’s were, they are showing promise after a couple of severe rebuilding seasons.

I left my house in Glendale at 6 AM, bound for a 8 AM flight to SJC. I chose to fly into SJC instead of OAK because I wanted to capture the experience of taking my old route from the South Bay. If BART was running all the way to Santa Clara, that would’ve been the choice. Alas, the downtown San Jose extension is still in turmoil, so I went with the Capitol Corridor train out of the Santa Clara station instead. As usual that experience was quite smooth, including a few lovely moments on the platform with an elderly woman who was traveling to Sacramento. I got off at the Coliseum station and took a few pictures of the old haunt from the Amtrak BART ramp. I also noticed an A’s security person stationed at the top of the ramp as it met the BART bridge. That didn’t strike me as particularly notable, but as I found out later, was something to consider as the season progresses.

Warm weather and a double dip are perfectly good excuses to head out to the yard

A half hour before first pitch, there was a good stream of fans headed to the game. I didn’t expect a very large crowd even with the doubleheader, but it was nice to see some turnout. The announced crowd was 8,320. It was clear that there were plenty of no-shows because of the muted reaction to some of the announced groups that supposedly purchased tickets. On the other hand, there was a 2-for-$20 promotion on the field level which brought a number of casual fans, and there was actually a line for walkups at the BART plaza ticket window. 

I figured I had plenty of time to get concessions if I was hungry, so I went straight to my seat in 119, next to the Diamond Level section. I was perched above the A’s batting circle, with a great view directly down the first base line. That afforded me a “great” view of Mount Davis, which got me thinking about how the A’s announced a series of giveaways throughout the season, culminating with a replica model of the Coliseum on the final regular season home date ever in Oakland on September 26. Which version of the Coliseum will be given away? The 1966-1995 version with the ice plant in the outfield, or the 1996-present version with the hulking 10,000-seat eyesore? I decided that I wasn’t going to travel all the way to the Bay Area to get the crappiest version of the thing I loved so much. I wasn’t going to proudly place that thing on a mantel or shelf for posterity. While that game will allow for a sort of wake for the club’s time in Oakland, I’ve personally done enough grieving over the years.

Try as you might to minimize it, Mount Davis is immense and unavoidable

To understand my stridence about this, you’ll have to consider my past as a young man covering his childhood love the A’s and the Raiders in the media when the Raiders first came back in 1995. I was working through college, hired by a freelance Bay Area photographer to provide rudimentary copy along with pictures he sold outside the normal wire services. I read enough of the great columnists and the young upstart reporters in the Bay Area papers to provide a reasonable facsimile, so I eagerly took the gig, a wide-eyed 19 year-old sitting in the back row of every press box, but with an assigned seat and a printed name plaque nonetheless (shout out to the greats Al LoCasale and Debbie Gallas, btw). Those first couple of years were a whirlwind, as the Coliseum was in a constant state of upheaval. Were you aware that there were two seating configurations for Raiders games depending on whether the A’s season was still on? During the baseball season, the football field was configured to run from home plate to center field to limit field damage by the temporary football seats. After October, the field was reconfigured to run from foul pole to foul pole in order for the bank of football seats to be installed in the baseball outfield. That was never the most ideal situation for either team, so I was curious what the renovated Coliseum would look like. A month ago, Travis Danner posted a page from the A’s magazine touting the improvements:

In case you can’t read the bullet points, I listed them below
  1. Two large family and corporate picnic areas
  2. Additional rest rooms and specialty food service stands
  3. New BART walkway and entrance plazas
  4. New ticket box office and retail areas
  5. 20,000 square foot family entertainment center concourse
  6. Center field corporate club with outfield seating 
  7. New outfield seats to replace benches
  8. New computerized matrix scoreboards
  9. Two new high resolution video screens
  10. Improved access to the upper deck
  11. Additional plush Luxury Suites and renovated Suites
  12. Diamond level seats in two areas adjacent to dugouts
  13. New club seating – premier seating in an outdoor setting
  14. 20,000 square foot private air-conditioned baseball club with dining areas and two-story bay windows overlooking the field
  15. Six new elevators to all levels
  16. New and enlarged press box and enlarged media elevator
  17. All new armchair seating throughout the entire stadium
  18. Television monitors under overhangs for instant replays
  19. Improved sound system
  20. Premium catering for the Clubs and Luxury Suites
  21. Enlarged clubhouse for A’s players
  22. Refurbished visitor locker room
  23. New media interview room for players
  24. Indoor batting tunnel and pitcher warm-up mounds
  25. Enlarged weight room
  26. Expanded field storage
  27. Club concourse connecting eastern addition with existing stadiums

In hindsight it’s easy to see how the A’s and A’s fans were so thoroughly screwed by these largely football-centric improvements. More seats, more suites, and more clubs in the wrong places, plus no mention of how the baseball experience would be compromised, it was soon to be disastrous for everyone involved from the pols to the teams to the put-upon fans. Back in 1995, that wasn’t so obvious. The retro ballpark craze had just started with only four such ballparks open by the start of the season (Camden Yards, Progressive Field, Coors Field, and New Comiskey if you want to count that). At that point, the retro craze was still a nascent one. It wasn’t until the millennium approached that the trend became a craze.

Back in 1995, I still believed in the utility of the multi-purpose stadium. SkyDome was conceived as a multi-purpose dome (MLB & CFL) and was huge and glitzy. Mostly I was mostly excited that the Coliseum would get an expanded press box. During that early period the auxiliary football press box was set up in one or both of the open Loge areas beyond the original luxury suites in the outfield. There was still overflow press seating for baseball, such as the repurposing of section 317 for visiting writers during the postseason. For the most part, the bigger press box was an enormous improvement – and it wasn’t yet overrun by critters. I saw the image in the A’s magazine and thought that they were fully enclosing the stadium like some of the cookie-cutters (Busch II, Riverfront, Three Rivers). Unfortunately, fans and press were bamboozled. Even when Opening Day 1996 came we didn’t see the full effect of what would become known as Mount Davis, as they hadn’t fully poured all of the concrete for the upper deck. Remember, the A’s had to spend the first week of the season at Cashman Field in Vegas. The video below captures  the mix of joy and unease that came with seeing the monstrosity looming over everything else. (Among the other notable things from that video: it was Charlie Finley Day with Monte Moore handling the proceedings, and the otherwise infallible Roy Steele mispronouncing Jeff Reboulet’s name). As Mount Davis fully rose, all A’s fans got were some security guards doing the YMCA dance late in the season.

All of my coverage on this blog and elsewhere has been viewed through the lens of someone who witnessed first hand the short and long-term effects of Mount Davis. I’m aware of how ironic it is that I got my shot through covering the Raiders coming back and that someone else recognized something in me. I’m not now and never have been a Raiders fan, though I had no reason to hate them up to that point. Nearly thirty years later, the Raiders are obviously THE catalyst for killing pro sports in Oakland because the East Bay never properly recovered from the experience, even after the Warriors’ dynasty. I’m often viewed as an enemy of the East Bay, at least on social media. In fact, Steven Tavares wrote an article about it. Criticizing Oakland is not the main focus of this site. Instead it became a chronicle of the litany of missteps and strategic errors made in trying to get a ballpark for the A’s built, by both politicians and ownership. Some were in Oakland, others in San Jose or Fremont, more are destined to come in Las Vegas. In the end, I look at all of these moments as simple matters of timing and execution. Oakland got an AFL franchise because the AFL needed a second West Coast location, and Oakland pitched itself as a good landing spot. Similarly, the A’s came to town because Finley saw more opportunity in the Bay Area than he did in Kansas City. The Warriors were nearly doomed to barnstorming by Franklin Mieuli until the gleaming Oakland Coliseum Arena was built. When East Bay power brokers brought back the Raiders and didn’t tell A’s ownership, baseball noticed but they couldn’t do anything about it. The early 2000’s birthed a renewed effort to give the A’s a proper home. The timing was poor there because there was no support by then-mayor Jerry Brown. Subsequent mayors lacked either the gravitas or the drive to see a ballpark project through, or they were somehow convinced that they could accomplish the same thing at the Coliseum 40 years in even though prevailing trends were pushing teams away from each other. At the same time, post-Haas ownership groups were often focused anywhere but Oakland, to the point that Oakland’s only legitimate shot to retain the came only 6-7 years ago.

Think I’m blowing the Mount Davis effect out of proportion? Take a look at the dwindling number of Coliseum-themed collectibles that are available for sale on eBay or MLB Shop. Posters and photos often set their perspectives to minimize the visual effect of Mount Davis as much as possible. It remains an ugly reminder of how failure can last generations. It’s impossible to deny how East Bay stadium proponents were cowed from making big public investments asks as they squandered all of their political capital on both the Raiders (horrible deal) and the Warriors (a good deal that had a rough ending). That made any and all Oakland efforts focused on the A’s a race against time, a test of MLB’s patience. It’s not that the East Bay suddenly got religion about the folly of publicly-funded stadium projects. The problem was that they knew they couldn’t ask. It’s like trying to fight with one arm tied behind your back.

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Mason Miller retiring Marcus Semien to end Game 1

After the A’s won the first game (including a surprise Mason Miller six-out, non-save exhibition of dominance), I made my rounds throughout as much of the Coliseum as I could. I traveled both the field and plaza concourses, went up to the View level, visited the Hall of Fame area, the bleachers, everything except the closed upper decks of Mount Davis. And that’s just fine. I used one of the trough urinals. I used a regular urinal behind left field, though I noticed that entire wall of urinals there hadn’t been flushed. Everything seemed darker and dingier than I remember in previous visits. On the bright side, I noticed that outside one of the concession stands there was a dispenser of various sealed cups of dips and sauces. I immediately thought that was a brilliant bit of convenience. Then I realized that if more fans were here those dispensers would be cleaned out by the second inning. It’s just human nature to take free stuff because it’s there. I have no idea what the vibe will be on September 26, the final game at the Coli. I can imagine that a lot of stuff that isn’t properly bolted down will quickly become souvenirs. That’s more than fair in a sense. Taxpayers paid for this, they might as well get something back. After all, the Coliseum’s not going to need all of those seats for an occasional Ballers or Roots/Soul game. The Coliseum is destined to go the way of RFK Stadium, which was finally cleared for demolition only last week. Then again, DC might bring the Commanders back from the wilderness in Landover/Raljon. Is a major team coming to Oakland anytime soon? Maybe, but first Oakland will have to spend some time in the wilderness. Brooklyn eventually got one, so it’s possible.

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P.S. – On the way back to the BART station I noticed a pile of trash strewn on the BART bridge. In 36 years of going to the Coliseum I’ve never seen that. That brings me back to the A’s security guy I saw at the Amtrak ramp. It used to be there were either A’s staff at the BART station entrance, sometimes with a golf cart to take mobility-impaired fans in either direction. I saw golf carts circling the Coliseum itself as one of the drivers nicely offered me a ride, but none on the bridge. The Coliseum is not the epicenter of the Bay Area’s apparent doom spiral. The way things are going, it can’t help but get caught up in the cycle.

P.P.S. – The origin of “Let’s Play Two.”

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Some other pictures:

D Gate
Honestly, how often are you going to a trough urinal in the wild?
Bangeliers having a record day
You can’t steal all of the free sauce when there isn’t anyone around to take it
Mount Davis, minimized in a poster
10.22.22
by

Autumn: #DiscontentSZN

Play the audio while you read the following post

I suppose I can ask now: Was the A’s tanking in the second half of 2021 and all of 2022 worth it if a Howard Terminal deal happened? Seemed like a lot of fans were hoping for exactly that to occur.

What’s that? There is no deal? Well, that complicates matters a bit. City staffers and the mayor finally conceded in the last few weeks that no deal is coming this year, barring a miracle.Any deal would have to be consummated in 2023 at the earliest, with no assurances that would happen given the changing political and economic landscape, along with the deal’s increasing complexity and cost.

I wrote in July that Oakland pols were mostly motivated by the fear of being blamed for the last major pro sports team leaving, and to that end they mostly succeeded. The unenviable responsibility will fall to the next Mayor and City Council, to be decided in two weeks. While some of the media try to position this as a sort of baton-passing exercise, anyone paying attention knows that a different mayor, with a different city council, is bound to have priorities that stray away from a $12 Billion mega-development project. Though perhaps it’s not that far off. Vice Mayor/CM Rebecca Kaplan posted a slide from a poll taken by the Mayor’s office on Oakland’s priorities. Look at where Howard Terminal lands in there.

Among Oakland initiatives, Howard Terminal comes EIGHTH in urgency

Whatever happens, Oakland’s looking at some serious regime change when 2023 rolls around (mayor, 2-3 council members), and no one should expect business as usual on the Howard Terminal front. Then again, Kaplan’s slide shows that HT doesn’t have the juice that outgoing Mayor Libby Schaaf liked to project. Perhaps following the script of pushing for incremental movement while hoping for a big breakthrough is staying the course, because what choice does Oakland have at this stage? What might change is the messaging. The Oakland populace has felt largely ignored by the mayor in her second term. A return to a more realistic approach may be in order, which may mean putting Howard Terminal on the back burner. At this point, who can really say? The building trades unions are certainly pumping enough money into this election to expect some sort of ROI. But the unexpected can and sometimes does happen in Oakland’s ranked choice elections. Maybe Ignacio De La Fuente will somehow sneak in.

The City of Oakland continues to make its procedural push, a double-edged sword which thankfully is not paid for by taxpayers but is being bankrolled by the A’s, creating its own apparent conflict of interest. Again, what choice does Oakland have? This is the game. Oakland chose to play it.

Now if you want a fully delusional view, I give you @As_Fan_Radio’s tweet from the summer, in which whichever account runner was working promoted FIVE teams in Oakland: the A’s, the return of the NFL to the Coliseum property, a WNBA team, plus the Roots and the Oakland Soul, a women’s pro soccer franchise owned by Roots ownership. Think about that for a moment. A city which 50 years ago made its name by being an easy-to-work-with landing spot for sports franchises spent the last decade running them out of town, yet still dreams it can easily retain or attract new ones. Sadly, they’re blind to two things: it’s harder to get things built now, and Oakland has been surpassed by many competing markets. Oakland is no longer a soft landing spot.

Looks a lot more like daydreaming than foresight
Renaissance? Perhaps trying to maintain relevance is a more achievable goal

Obviously, the NFL is in no hurry to come back to Oakland since the City’s Hail Mary lawsuit against the league was recently dismissed by the US Supreme Court. Oakland, like St. Louis, argued for monetary damages because of the way it lost its NFL team for the second time. Unlike St. Louis’s successful lawsuit, the Court didn’t buy that the NFL hurt Oakland on antitrust grounds. STL actually produced a funded stadium option for the Rams, which Stan Kroenke and the NFL ignored as their sights were focused on re-entry to the LA market. Oakland, which had an EIR in place for Coliseum City (sound familiar?), didn’t have a funding plan in place. STL took the Rams/NFL to court first in 2015, Oakland later in 2018. Despite regular defeats on the bench, ambulance chasing law firms kept taking Oakland’s case on contingency.

On the other hand, WNBA could happen in Oakland since there’s already an excellent modern – though expensive to operate – venue in the Coliseum Arena. The issue there, as is the case for most WNBA franchises, is a matter of who’s going to pick up the operating costs. I argued previously that it was curious that Joe Lacob, who gained credibility in the pro sports world via his foray in the ABL, so far has only teased his involvement with a WNBA franchise. If the argument against has to do with defraying operating costs, I have to point out that the Warriors’ luxury tax bill will run into the nine figures for the next several seasons thanks to upcoming contract extensions. If anyone can afford the freight of running a WNBA team and its piddly $1 million annual payroll, it’s Joe Lacob and his partners, though chances are he’d prefer to play most of the games in the arena he runs across the Bay.

As for the Roots/Soul, they’re using the same playbook the A’s briefly (and successfully until it became unsustainable) used when the Raiders left. Despite the Roots’ recent success in North American second-tier league USL Championship, there’s still a way to go to establishing a permanent home away from Laney College, where the football stadium is being rented. The franchise is in talks to build a stadium on the Malibu lot next to the Coliseum, which is City-owned and not subject to City/County/JPA co-ownership stakes. If the HomeBase lot is included, the total land is about 20 acres -more than enough for the stadium and some ancillary development. The requirements for USL Championship (10,000-person stadium capacity) is roughly half that of MLS (20,000). One thing you have to keep in mind for these fledgling franchises is that their plans have to manage growth. They can’t simply build a 5k or 10k stadium and call it a day unless they don’t plan to bring in more fans than that on a regular basis. If their plan is to eventually build something attractive for promotion to MLS, that’s a completely different set of requirements or challenges.

Look, if you’ve been reading this far and reading my posts for some time, you know I’m not a person to provide easy answers or empty rah-rah homerism. I care about the deal and how it gets done, who wins and who loses. I didn’t care much about how the EIR and related approvals came through because I knew those proceedings had limited impact and had tons of strings attached. If the A’s announce they’re leaving for Las Vegas tomorrow, it’s not like whatever tentative approvals are in place at HT can be transferred to a hypothetical new MLB team, a soccer team, or god forbid, a NBA or NFL team. What people fail to understand about Oakland’s plight is that none of these leagues are going to wait too long for Oakland to get its shit together, only as long as a team is bound to a lease. The leagues allowed two Oakland teams to find better options outside of city limits, the same way they allowed the A’s to do “Parallel Paths.” If you believe MLB or anyone will exercise a great deal of patience for Oakland to come up with a perfect deal (Opening Day 2027, hello?), history shows that strategy doesn’t pay off for The Town. Which is somewhat ironic, because as Oakland loses team after team and fades from relevance on the national stage (I didn’t forget that Mills College merged with Northeastern University), “The Town” may be a more apt nickname than anything an overpaid consulting firm could come up with.

There’s always next year. Until then…

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P.S. – In the summer of 2021 there was an arbitrary deadline to get a deal done between the A’s and the City. They made fundamentally different proposals and agreed to work on them, punting the deadline TBD. Early this year, the EIR and BCDC decisions were also pitched as critical. November’s election, and the end of the year, are similarly sold. Now that these dates have elapsed, what are the consequences for miscalculating the impact? Do the HT proponents tire of buying these arbitrary deadlines whole? Healthy skepticism never hurt anyone, especially when so much money is on the line.

01.19.22
by

Howard Terminal Recommendation Passes 6-0

Howard Terminal Maritime Reservation Scenario

You may be wondering where I went since the EIR came out. Well, I buried myself in reading it for 2 weeks. I became increasingly disappointed in how so many of the mitigations and measures were being put off until later dates, to be instituted by other agencies. Then I woke up on New Year’s Day and realized that whatever I say about it, my words would not convince people unwilling to read them. So I stayed quiet and watched football instead. It’s very American.

Remember how in October, I wrote that we were reaching the end of non-binding season regarding Howard Terminal? I hate to inform you that end was delayed. Tonight, Oakland’s Planning Commission voted 6-0 to recommend certification of the Howard Terminal Final EIR. Chair Clark Manus reminded everyone early on that the vote wasn’t to certify the document as that could only be done by the City Council. That vote could happen as early as a month from now. Beyond the mealy-mouthed statements about how there are still many questions remaining and the hopeful speculation by the Commission and the clearly outnumbered project supporters during the hearing, what did we really get? I’ll tell you.

It was practice.

Throughout the four-hour session, the commission was peppered with commenters pleading to table the recommendation until further study could be done. The commission’s counter-argument was that the Draft EIR and Final EIR were done and complete, which should be enough for the limited CEQA scope of the commission. Of course, there were plenty of arguments from the assembled commenters that the EIRs were, in fact, not complete. The decision was made around 7 PM rather swiftly, which made me think it was a fait accompli. There was a little aside at the end, however:

Again, the commission approved a recommendation. The details – deals, covenants, agreements, litigation – are all off in the future. Perhaps they won’t actually happen until the EIR is certified and then the power of AB 734 kicks in. Once that happens, all of the aggrieved parties can file their lawsuits and get their pound of flesh from the project. You think CEQA is ugly, wait until various public and private entities line up to get whatever limited funds John Fisher decides is worth the cost of Howard Terminal. For years I hoped that the A’s would truly try to get ahead of the coming storm and work out mutually beneficial deals for the various ethnic and community groups, let alone the small and large commercial entities that work at the Port. I was so naive.

But I don’t think it’ll get that far. You see, I don’t expect these unresolved issues to magically resolve themselves in the next month. Or two-three months, or even nine months as the law limits negotiations. Instead, what will probably happen is what always happens in California when a government has a problem that is too massive and difficult to solve: they’ll put it to a referendum. The pressure from the lobbying groups and citizens will ratchet up, and the Council will do it to relieve some of that pressure.

Do you honestly expect anything different?

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P.S. – For all the complaints about CEQA, it’s funny to hear the refrain from the commission members that they were bound by CEQA. CEQA allowed this project to be so tightly restricted in scope that in a way it’s above reproach. Complain about that!

10.28.21
by

The End of Non-Binding Season

All I wanna do is zoom-a-zoom-zoom-zoom

Best moment of last night’s Alameda County Board of Supervisors meeting came shortly after Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf presented her Howard Terminal pitch over Zoom. In the discussion that followed nearly 2 hours into the item and 5 hours into the meeting, questions came up about what the Supervisors wanted to do with the resolution at hand that night. Eventually it became a matter of semantics with a debate over whether the Supes were putting together a “declaration of intent” or a “declaration of willingness.” I started to chuckle at the absurdity of that display as the County Counsel tried to verify whether the language of the resolution properly referred to it being “non-binding” (it did). Here’s the relevant language:

Section 2. The Board hereby declares the non-binding intent of the County to contribute the County’s share of the incremental property taxes, inclusive of property taxes in lieu of vehicle license fees, that will be generated from development of the Waterfront Ballpark District at Howard Terminal into an EIFD to be formed over the project site for the purpose of financing affordable housing, parks, and other infrastructure of community-wide significance, for a period of 45 years and that the County’s commitment to contribute would not guarantee a specific amount, would solely be limited to contributing such taxes actually received.

And to put a finer point on it:

Section 3. The Board hereby finds that this declaration of non-binding intent to is not subject to CEQA because this action is non-binding, does not result in any discretionary approval or grant vested development rights, and does not commit the County to any definite course of action; accordingly, this action does not constitute a “project” under CEQA Guidelines.

Supervisor Wilma Chan declared support for the motion with a hedge, saying that the Board could easily go back on the non-binding vote. That stands in stark contrast to Board President and Supervisor Keith Carson, who said that he didn’t want to vote in that manner. In fact, he said that a non-binding vote once cast, is hard to walk away from. Debate aside, the question of a non-binding vote’s political power will be rendered moot soon as far as Howard Terminal is concerned. That’s because with Alameda County voting 4-1 to pledge its share of property taxes from the development, they’re now a party to this as long as the project continues to move forward. Let’s be clear on this point, however: last night was for all intents and purposes the last “non-binding” vote for Howard Terminal. Just about everything from here on it, whether it’s a decision taken by the City of Oakland, Port of Oakland, Alameda County, BCDC, or SLC, is very much a binding decision.

The takeaway is that it’s hard to play Kool and the Gang’s “Celebration” after all of this. The fact of the matter is that these were supposed to be the easy votes, the rubber stamps. They weren’t. There’s little reason to take a single item marked by its legal impotence and turn it into a 7.5-hour marathon session.  The votes from this point forward only become more difficult, whether we’re talking about the EIR certification or the actual business deal to develop the land. Those will be make or break votes, the ones where truly tough decisions will have to be made. But first, the EIR.

I assembled a full thread of observations from the day’s proceedings.

Under the radar, Chan mentioned that the A’s, who are providing the loans for the infrastructure at Howard Terminal, will charge interest to the City and County for those loans. This should be interpreted a couple of ways. First, as the A’s are a private entity, they aren’t expected to be eligible for tax-free loans even if it’s for public infrastructure, which is mostly funded by municipal bonds. Here’s where I will have to defer to an expert on public finance, as it’s unclear where the private part ends and the public part begins. I also have no idea what would happen if, in the next 2-3 years, interest rates go up. Would that cause the A’s to back out of some part of the private financing pledge because it doesn’t pencil out compared to traditional municipal bonds. It’s worth considering the implications. Note that the current discussions have City and County pulling together to create a PFA (public financing authority) for infrastructure bonds.

Former City of Alameda Mayor and current Councilperson Trish Herrera Spencer spoke during the public comments period about a letter drawn up by the City of Alameda in support of the Howard Terminal project. It was nixed apparently because resoundingly negative feedback (43 comments against, 2 for).

Not to be forgotten is how the state of Washington put up hundreds of millions in infrastructure including the surface roads and ramps connecting the freeways to the Port. And we can’t forget the the big public subsidies in both stadiums. A better, more current example of this conflict is the SoDo arena proposal, planned for the same area to the south of the stadiums. It was harshly opposed by the Port of Seattle and died during the process, which allowed the existing arena (Key Arena/Seattle Center Coliseum) to be rebuilt as a NHL venue which opened this year, Climate Pledge Arena.

Alameda County also asked for the A’s to pay for a further Howard Terminal study whose scope is uncertain. A’s President Dave Kaval responded positively to that request. I think there’s already supposed to be a thorough economic impact study encompassing the regional impact. I’m not sure if Alameda County wants to help define or expand that.

There was also some confusion about who initiated the City’s request of the County to enter the EIFD. Kaval confirmed that the A’s did not make such a request, which apparently was a rumor dating back from earlier in the spring. The A’s also didn’t want the City to scrap the second IFD proposed at Jack London Square either. For better or worse, the City of Oakland has the reins now. The ball is fully in the City’s court.

The off-site cost estimate is currently $351.9 million and is the sole responsibility of the City, which is hoping a state windfall will help. Federal funds are looking less likely with each passing day. Memorize that number for future reference.

Responses to the public comments are coming. If the Final EIR drops before the December break, it will kick off a new comment period which will probably be extended like the Draft comment period was. After that, we’ll get proper breakdowns for mitigation cost estimates and alternative steps, if not wholesale changes in the plan. If everything goes well, there’s a chance it could all be approved by Opening Day. Given how this project’s only constant is its inability to stick to its timeline, I wouldn’t bet on it.

09.08.21
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Oakland Design Review Committee 9/9 Hearing

As usual, I took notes of what I felt was important. Read the 19-tweet thread to start, then read the rest of this post.

Like the Planning Commission hearing from April, the Design Review Committee hearing was chaired by Clark Manus. Unlike April, Howard Terminal in its current form is further along than a mere “napkin sketch.” That doesn’t mean there aren’t a host of issues to work out. Manus and the other commissioners on hand, Jonathan Fearn and Tom Limon, expressed hope and positivity over the project. Manus in particular is close to considering the Maritime Reservation Scenario, in a which a chunk of Howard Terminal has to be lopped off for a wider turning basin for container ships, a nearly foregone conclusion. All three pointed to very high building heights along the bay as cause for concern. One or two of the residential towers in particular would be the highest on the Bayfront, higher than anything similarly along the SF waterfront (or anywhere else in the Bay for that matter). These concerns nearly tripped up the Brooklyn Basin project until that was also approved with with mostly mid-rise structures.

For now, the big takeaways are the concerns from the DRC that building such a large, tall project along Oakland’s waterfront would effectively create a second downtown, competing with the existing downtown instead of complementing it. The other is the the shipping industry continuing to press for details on the expanded turning basin, which apparently needs a sizable buffer to protect ship traffic. Will that buffer be 500 feet as requested by industry, or 300 or less as requested by the applicant? We may not find out until the Final EIR is released.

The last thing that got serious attention was the still unresolved grade separation issue. City Planner Peterson Vollmann confirmed that the project still only has a pedestrian bridge in the plan with a vehicular bridge as an alternative. The trucking and rail interests are adamant that the vehicular bridge has to be included, even demanding it get built before anything else. Take a look at the map below, which shows the percentage of fans who will arrive on gameday based on intersection and mode (car, foot, bike). That’s SIX intersections crossing the existing tracks, only one of which is a promised grade-separated pedestrian bridge.

3% of fans coming by ferry is optimistic

The project is being set up to have a bunch of details decided when the Final EIR is released and approved, which the City is projected towards the end of October. Since the A’s on the field are slipping out of the pennant race, some good news in October would be nice. Yet you should expect another series of fights. And hopefully next time there will be fewer arbitrary deadlines like the 7/20 City Council vote that was supposed to change everything.

Revised centerfield approach from Jack London Square is supposed to have a sliding door to provide views from inside/outside the ballpark and to supplement the batter’s eye during play
Harbor View provides scale for residential towers behind the ballpark, one of which could be 600 feet tall
Maritime Reservation Scenario allows expanded turning basin to take up some of the office/residential blocks and a lot of the open space; Safety Buffer line is 150-200 feet from the shoreline, shipping interests want 500 feet

Assuming the Maritime Reservation Scenario is built, the A’s will simply cram all of their planned development into the smaller footprint, about 37 acres. You know what that means: Taller buildings. Not under any significant discussion today was the ballpark itself, which is much lower than the ancillary development to the west.

07.29.21
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San Diego: How To Deal With Trains In An Urban Ballpark Setting

Petco Park and SDMTS figured out how to make it work, can Oakland?

The A’s played a short set at Petco this week. I couldn’t make it, though I really should’ve planned better because I could’ve had the unique doubleheader of an A’s road game and celebrating the birth of a nephew as my brother and his family live in San Diego. I mean, how often does anyone get to experience that?

(Update: Nephew was due Tuesday, not delivered yet which makes him technically a squatter)

While I’m not nervously waiting in San Diego this week, I was able to visit over the recent holiday weekend. While there I made my first visit Petco Park in seven years. The Padres were out of town, so no game. I had already taken the tour previously, so no tour either this time. Instead I walked around the Gaslamp District and contemplated it.

Much has been written about the Gaslamp, the mostly commercial area between the docks and Downtown. Redevelopment there started in earnest in the 1970’s with preservation efforts. The district had its share of urban blight which allowed city leaders to decide which building merited keeping or a bulldozer. As that was decided, the Gaslamp got swept up into the urban renewal craze. That led to redevelopment misses like the Horton Plaza mall and hits like Petco Park.

I started my trip on a SDMTS bus from my hotel in North San Diego to Downtown. The trip ended at Broadway and 10th Avenue, a half-mile walk from Petco Park. As I crossed the street I was greeted with the familiar scent of urine. Ah, maybe the East Village isn’t fully gentrified yet, I thought. The walk was otherwise pleasant with a slight downslope all the way to the ballpark. I got a snack and beverage nearby and planted myself in the Park at the Park, which based on my previous experiences changed for the worse. The park remains publicly accessible yet feels far more restricted due to many of the spaces within it being claimed for different types of private uses. When it first opened the Park also had a number of transients in it whenever I went, so I imagine that renting it out was just as much to keep out that element as anything revenue-related. Should Howard Terminal come to fruition, the A’s will have to figure out how to manage that element in what will be a much larger and more complex space, from the roof deck to the waterfront spaces beyond the playing field.

Park at the Park in 2014

Petco Park arrived as the Gaslamp’s redevelopment went full blast. Some of that was boosted by a huge land giveaway to then-owner of the Padres, John Moores, and his development wing JMI Realty. Petco Park was completed in 2004 after securing $300 million in public funding. Moores also got a development rights to 24 blocks around Petco, which led to nearly 3,000 housing units, millions of square feet of retail and commercial space, and a separate 7.1-acre Ballpark Village to the east of the ballpark (note incorrect graphic in link). Getting to opening day was a bumpy road, as the project was rife with political scandal over illegal gift-giving and lawsuits.

The delays allowed SDMTS to catch up in terms of building infrastructure. The Blue and Orange Trolley lines were already in place a block east of the ballpark, but another plan was coming into place. To get more fans from the I-8 corridor all the way out to SDSU and beyond, MTS planned to extend the Green Line from the Old Town station East of I-5 and into Downtown. Eventually the line would terminate at the 12th Street/Imperial station, the same transfer hub for the Blue and Orange lines. Until then, Green Line users would have to transfer at Old Town to Blue/Orange Trolleys. The finished system downtown effectively creates a loop around all of Downtown San Diego, including the Convention Center and tourist attractions along Harbor Drive. In addition, a new Silver line historic trolley now runs that loop.

View from pedestrian bridge spanning Harbor Drive and the BNSF/Trolley tracks with good buffer space

Infrastructure is a long game, though. While the Blue and Orange lines were already in place prior to the Padres’ 2004 Opening Day, the Green Line wouldn’t start operation until 2005. Its extension to downtown didn’t start service until fall 2012. The Green Line’s Gaslamp Quarter station is a mere Fernando Tatis, Jr. blast away from the third base gate, while the 12th/Imperial station is 800 feet away from the home plate gate. At least that’s better than nearly a mile, which is the distance to the Santa Fe Depot for Amtrak/Coaster trains (or Howard Terminal’s distance from BART for that matter).

The other aspect to the infrastructure long game was the BNSF’s active rail line west of the ballpark. Sandwiched between Petco and Harbor Drive, BNSF also had to make room for the Green Line expansion. To make it all work, vehicular access across Harbor Drive near the ballpark was limited to two intersections, 1st Ave and 5th Ave. Fencing was built all along Harbor to dissuade pedestrians from playing chicken with trains, though occasionally a train would stop in front of the ballpark, allowing for some interesting interactions. The idea is that mitigation measures should reduce those interactions as much as possible. A pedestrian bridge was built over Harbor, connecting the San Diego Convention Center and the Hilton Bayfront to Petco and the 12th/Imperial station. Besides the convention center and hotel access, the two facilities also housed more than 3,000 parking spaces. 

The Trolley tracks act as a buffer between the ballpark and the active BNSF rail line

The way Petco is situated, most fans won’t cross the tracks along Harbor Drive. They disembark at one of the Trolley stations nearby and walk safely to the ballpark. Or they take a bus or ride share to within the vicinity of Petco. Or they’ll park at one of the nearby lots in the East Village. There’s even a designated Tailgate lot, which seems inconceivable in a downtown area in 2021. Regardless of the method of travel, the average fan is unlikely to interact with a freight train due to how everything was planned. At Petco, the Trolley serves as a buffer surrounding the ballpark. Again, it’s well conceived and serves the City and County well. If you’re coming from SDSU, Santee, San Ysidro, or Mission Valley, you’re covered. The Trolley is in the midst of an expansion program, which will finally bring service all the way to La Jolla and UCSD. They’re also building express lanes on I-5 to benefit people who are less likely to take transit.

The EIR describes the mandatory grade separation for pedestrians, which is planned along Jefferson Street. The vehicular grade separation is practically a given at Market Street, especially if Union Pacific and the Federal Rail Administration demand it upfront as a condition of their project acceptance. Now that the City is taking responsibility for the off-site infrastructure, the grade separations are now the City’s problem. They will try to get money from the new federal infrastructure bill, of which a Senate version passed today with bipartisan support. Should Congresswoman Nancy Skinner succeed in competing for and securing the funds, the City will be part of the way there. To do it right they’ll also have to expand the fencing along Embarcadero. Remember how I pointed out that there are only two at-grade crossings near Petco? When you take away Jefferson and Market, Howard Terminal has *six* crossings to worry about. If this is to be done right, that fencing has to expand big time.

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P.S. – The bus yard next to the Tailgate lot was once considered for a Chargers stadium.

2016 rendering of a Chargers retractable roof stadium and convention center venue

P.P.S. – For more info on the history of the SDMTS Trolley system, check out this fine video.

07.22.21
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Oakland approves its own term sheet, tells world, “It’ll be fine, we’re good for it”

We’ve seen a wide range of reaction pieces in the wake of the Tuesday’s City Council meeting in which the Council voted on their own proposal, not the A’s own plans. The A’s and MLB responded in the negative, which was to be expected. Since then, Howard Terminal supporters took the A’s choice to let their legal team review the City’s proposal and not dismiss it outright as a hopeful sign. Which was, well, also to be expected. The supporters are ready, bent over, crying to the A’s, “Thank you sir, may I have another?”

You have to wonder if Oakland likes being bent over for stadium deals

News links:

Ray Ratto on Defector

Scott Ostler in the Chronicle

Mercury News

KQED

NY Times

If Oakland wants to feed that appetite, it should be allowed to do so. It shouldn’t involve Alameda County in any part of it. I liken it to a recent college graduate who didn’t get the dream job right after graduation. Six months into the search, he has an opportunity to get a decent job, one that could give him a good income, pay back his loans, and move out of his parents’ house. All that’s required is a lengthy commute. He has a 2011 Honda Accord as his steed, but trusty as it is, it has 100,000 miles on it. He has designs on a Tesla Model 3. He tried to buy one earlier but found that without an income and a good credit score he’ll need his parents to co-sign the loan. Clearly he doesn’t need the Model 3, but it would make him feel good!

Alameda County, as the parents in this labored metaphor, want to empty the nest, downsize, and travel during retirement. That’s why they sold their half of the Coliseum. The City is holding onto their half despite historically having greater difficulty servicing their share of the Mount Davis debt. Alameda County knew when to call it a night. Oakland can’t do it. After the Tuesday Howard Terminal session, Council entered negotiations sell their half to one of two Black-led developer groups, with an upfront promise of a WNBA team at the vacant Oakland Arena and the future promise of a NFL stadium (AASEG) or a MLB ballpark (Dave Stewart/Lonnie Murray). 

The City will give itself six months to evaluate either bid, then decide on one to enter one of those vaunted Exclusive Negotiating Agreements. The A’s surrendered their position when they shifted completely to Howard Terminal, but thanks to their agreement to buy the County’s half of the Coliseum, they will have their own say in the Coliseum’s future. Six months is fine as I wasn’t planning to cover that deal until the offseason begins.

With that pending distraction on the back burner, let’s take a look at what the City approved during the Howard Terminal session. Out of all the mostly nothingburger was one really important bit of news.

I don’t know what the City and the A’s spent much of the weekend negotiating, but for the City to say they’ll handle the responsibilities of the offsite IFD is a mind boggling bit of capitulation on their part. Let’s take a step back and consider what this really means for the project. First of all, the A’s are essentially not responsible for any of the needed transportation improvements outside Howard Terminal. They’ll handle the cleanup and grading of the 55-acres, sure. The grade separations and other rail safety measures? City’s problem. The transit hub? City. The ongoing cost of whatever shuttles have to be run between the BART stations and the development? Also the City. In a previous post I lamented how the Howard Terminal vision didn’t include the transportation infrastructure onsite. Now that chicken is coming home to roost. You can try to argue how much this tax or that assessment will help fund it, the fact is that it’s the City’s responsibility.

In that capitulation, Oakland still has the temerity to request Alameda County’s participation in the Howard Terminal IFD. Supporters are actually saying the County just has to turn on the faucet and let the tax increment come out. No big deal, right? But they’re forgetting that once the County opts in, they have to create their own Public Financing Authority to run the tax increment collection and governance of Howard Terminal. That’s on top of the existing jurisdiction of the Port. So City is asking County to help create its own Coliseum Jr. on the waterfront. Sounds like a great proposal for a party that wants to get out of the pro sports game, no?

Hello, Coliseum Jr!

Naturally, those infrastructure imperatives will compete with community benefits, which are still being negotiated at the moment, and because they are being tacked on are likely to be the last items in line to be funded if any funding is left over. Maybe in 20 years when the vision is developed and mature, and the collected tax increment catches up. The A’s proposal sets forth $450 million, which all parties will end up competing for like Oakland’s running its own civic funding reality show.

But there’s state and federal funding to be had, right? A Politico report points to $280 million made available by Governor Newsom that could be leveraged for the Port. The report focused on this phrase:

“improvements that facilitate enhanced freight and passenger access and to promote the efficient and safe movement of goods and people.”

What does that mean in the context of Howard Terminal? Expanded ferry service? Maybe, though that doesn’t help the existing fanbase much if at all as most of them aren’t on the water or have access to a ferry terminal. The proposal doesn’t include a new Amtrak station at Howard Terminal. Freight? By repurposing Howard Terminal for commercial and residential use, the A’s and City are taking freight out of the equation except for the possibility of providing funds for the grade separation. Which is great in theory, but doesn’t actually make the Port’s shipping operations more efficient or productive than the status quo.

As for federal funds? Republicans filibustered the first vote on the current infrastructure bill yesterday. It looks like the Democrats will take a shot next week, pairing the bill with a social safety net bill as they try to get it through the Senate. Will it provide the kind of funding this project needs? Tune in next week to see what comes out of the sausage grinder. Note that Congress has its own recess in a week, just like their counterparts in City/County/State government.

As Howard Terminal supporters look far afield for dropped coins to fund this boondoggle, I’m reminded of the lengths Oakland and Alameda County had to go to get the Coliseum complex funded initially. Some things don’t change. It also reminds me of former Mayor Jean Quan’s desperate attempts to get Coliseum City funded by the use of a controversial visa program and also by name checking the “Prince of Dubai.” It isn’t enough to do things on a manageable scale in Oakland. The thirst to become a big city never dies. It evolves into something more wretched, more complex. Who’s willing to co-sign this one?

07.20.21
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7/20 #oakmtg Live Thread

Oakland’s City Council passed the City’s term sheet on Howard Terminal (6 ayes, 1 no, 1 abstention). With that the A’s braintrust is off to Vegas while they and MLB decide what to do next.

You didn’t really think this would magically come together in the last few weeks, did you?

Tweet-by-tweet coverage

… and a snap poll for good measure:

There’s a baseball game on today. In Oakland. Enjoy it. I’ll provide feedback on the meeting later today.

07.17.21
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How to Turn Win-Win-Win into No-Win in a Few Short Hours

Well, that was a disaster.

Friday morning started off with great anticipation, as fans and the media eagerly awaited the City of Oakland’s version of a term sheet. As I wrote last week, the City and the A’s are working at cross purposes in trying to come to terms, as the A’s don’t want to stray too far from what they proposed while the City wants change enough of it for the City Council to pass it.

The term sheet with attachments dropped Friday morning at 9:15 AM. Reporters from all major Bay Area print and broadcast outlets swooped in to study it. Now keep in mind that the City is now dealing with two term sheets, the one proposed by the A’s during the spring and the version put together by City staff. While the A’s and City keep working to come to agreements on major deal points, the only big achievement so far is a consensus on a 25-year non-relocation clause, up from 20 proposed originally by the A’s.

The City’s term sheet entirely omits the offsite IFD (infrastructure financing district), called JLS though it doesn’t include Jack London Square proper. Instead the focus is on a single IFD at the 55-acre Howard Terminal site. From a passage standpoint this is the best move by the City, since the offsite IFD didn’t have broad support and likely wouldn’t withstand a vote of property owners to tax themselves. However, the A’s lobbied for the offsite IFD from the beginning and continue to push for it, turning the issue into a potential showstopper.

Casey Pratt from ABC7 and Brodie Brazil from NBC Sports California both interviewed A’s President Dave Kaval later in the day. Kaval didn’t budge much on the IFD stance, though Pratt caught Kaval not being forthcoming about the state of a potential short-term extension at the Coliseum. I started to feel uneasy at points in both interviews as I got the feeling that Pratt and Brazil were practically negotiating, but for what? The City has its own negotiating team, as do the A’s. Were they representing fans, who until now have been criminally underrepresented? Perhaps, though there are always dangers in turning this already public negotiation even more public. I understand wanting to give fans some nuggets of hope, but this isn’t the way to do it. It’s already a confusing mess, since if the resolution passes on Tuesday it will likely be rejected out of hand by the A’s. If it’s voted down, which the A’s prefer, the City will have to go back to the drawing board while the A’s will have license to look beyond Vegas in terms of relocation. Hell, they’ll have the freedom regardless of what happens on Tuesday. That Kaval already has a Vegas trip planned immediately after the vote indicates that Kaval and Fisher are anticipating either outcome.

What I find puzzling is that at some point in the past 3/6/12/18 months the City should have recognized the offsite IFD was a loser and proactively adjusted the plan accordingly, or at least pushed the applicant (the A’s) in that direction. Now City has a funding gap of $351.9 million and no clear path(s) to bridge it. Kaval mentioned in one of the previous public hearings that the A’s could get the ballpark built with only $22 million in infrastructure built prior to opening day. My guess is that $22 million would go only towards the fencing and other safety measures that would be required for minimal rail safety, though obviously that’s far short of the full grade separation wanted by Union Pacific and Amtrak.

Howard Terminal ballpark with lots of park and open space around it

The A’s chose to propose the ballpark with all of the virtually all of the needed infrastructure, especially the transit hub, located offsite. In doing so, they made the offsite part of the project much more expensive. The transit hub, which will cover a two-block stretch of 2nd Street, is likely to cost $50-100 million to implement. There are also the bridges to build for grade separation. If the A’s included the transit hub as part of the Howard Terminal IFD, they could’ve reduced the offsite cost while providing a reasons for the City to invest in the transit hub: efficiency and better packaging. The team probably didn’t go this route because they didn’t want a transit hub right next to their luxurious condo towers. The funny thing about that is that because they already conceded the western blocks of the site as a buffer against Schnitzer Steel, those blocks are set up well for office uses, parking, and a transit hub if they want it.

Site plan with the southwest corner cut out for the expanded turning basin

Even if the transit hub is relocated, the grade separations remain a priority, even moreso because of the refocused traffic. That $352 million cost doesn’t magically go away. As I leafed through the term sheet it struck me that the offsite infrastructure cost is about the same as the construction cost for PacBell/AT&T/Oracle Park (not adjusted for inflation). It never gets cheaper, and as the A’s keep dillydallying with sites and cities, the price will continue to rise especially if new requirements they didn’t anticipate 10 or 20 years ago are piled on.

Other cities will be talked about as the A’s and MLB grow more frustrated with Oakland. These days that’s par for the course. Just remember that there are a couple factors that will have sway that no candidate city can control. One is inflation, or the rising cost of construction. That’s partly explained by building more complex buildings than what used to be standard (see my visit to Globe Life Field as the most recent example). Places that need retractable roofs and comprehensive HVAC systems can add a cool $300-400 million off the top. That’s an equalizer for Oakland. The other factor is written into the MLB’s constitution.

As a team in one of the largest markets, the A’s agreed to be taken off revenue sharing indefinitely. When that occurred I complained that Oakland, while in the powerhouse Bay Area, is functionally more of a mid-market team like San Diego or team in the Midwest due to its inherent disadvantages in media and location. Regardless, the A’s have to play by big boy rules, so they get no quarter, no revenue sharing. That means that any move to a new market (Portland, Las Vegas, Vancouver) must be contemplated not only as a new market, but also a market that will require the A’s to go on revenue sharing due to yes, inherent disadvantages in media and location or market size. If MLB’s philosophy is to get franchises off revenue sharing as a necessity (call it small market welfare), moving the A’s to a much smaller market contradicts that notion. Ironically, crippling the A’s revenue picture a few years ago may be the one thing that saves the A’s for Oakland in the end. If only they can get a ballpark built.

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P.S. – The Oakland Coliseum is about 16 acres in size. It’s huge. The Howard Terminal looks very close, maybe 14 acres. The packaging could be a lot better for 30,000 seats.

07.10.21
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Union Pacific explains their Howard Terminal position

After the release of the Howard Terminal Draft EIR, I waited for the compiled comments to become available. Beneath the pleas from transit agencies and housing groups, there was a video provided by none other than Union Pacific (UPRR). The well-produced video comment is not much longer than a typical music video and comes with a highly professional voiceover.

Video illustrates hypothetical train parked in front of Howard Terminal

Union Pacific continues to raise concerns over the project, saying that it will impact its operations. The chief problem is that when a train stops at UPRR’s yard to the west of Howard Terminal, it will often be stuck there for 10-45 minutes as a long train is effectively split into three parts to fit it into the tracks at the yard. After that switching activity is completed the train can be loaded or unloaded. Presumably, the train has to be reassembled to some extent in order to begin its next journey.

Okay, we knew that going in, nothing new, right? Ah, but there’s a twist. UPRR acknowledges that despite its concerns, the City of Oakland could plow ahead with the project anyway. If that happens, UPRR is prepared to make demands. The big ask, which I heard from PMSA’s Mike Jacob in a discussion with Zennie Abraham yesterday, is that UPRR will request that all construction traffic be grade separated from the active rail line before construction on the rest of the project begins.

Block or charge? You make the call

It’s a reasonable request from a safety standpoint, one that I could see the Federal Rail Administration, Caltrans, and Amtrak supporting. If you’re going to reduce the risk of train-automobile or train-pedestrian/bike interactions, putting in a grade separation at Market Street (location not finalized) makes sense. The problem with that what we’re really talking about is putting in a big concrete bridge at Market, a piece of infrastructure that the A’s have been hesitant to commit to. As UPRR’s Robert Bylsma wrote in May:

So, apparently it was the Oakland A’s who made the decision to reject grade separation — the only safe and effective means of protecting Oakland A’s fans, as well as families residing in the Project area and other Oakland citizens, using Project facilities — as infeasible because of the “length of time it would take” to design and build, and would affect negatively “the Oakland Athletics’ competitive position within MLB.”

Of course, a fully grade-separated entrance to the site that can handle trucks and heavy iron won’t be cheap. It’s not a showstopper, since if that’s the cost of doing business at Howard Terminal, that’s the cost of doing business. It does push a major project cost to the front of the line where it would compete with other line items. Plus there’s the visual issue of an eyesore bridge going up before the ballpark or anything else along the waterfront. During last week’s session, City staff still considered the vehicular grade separation an alternative, not a requirement.

With the separate vehicular and pedestrian bridges added to the project, the grade separation cost alone threatens to run into the $300 million range. There’s no surprise there. Good quality infrastructure costs money. When HT was considered 10 years ago for a ballpark, guess how much a new BART station at Market or Brush streets was estimated to cost? $250-300 million. I guess in hindsight I can see why A’s ownership is being so tightfisted about an item as fundamental in 2021 as affordable housing. Even if your budget is projected to hit $12 Billion, every $300 million counts.