Category Archives: Oakland

12.23.13
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The Solomonesque solution that thankfully never happened

When the latest Matier and Ross column featuring Coliseum City and the A’s dropped over the weekend, I wasn’t sure if I should follow-up right away or wait for the proverbial other shoe to drop. Drop it did, with a press release coming from the A’s early today. Frankly, I don’t know what to make of any of it. BayIG (the combined investor/developer group) was supposed to contact the A’s starting in mid-November. Now it’s all a bunch of he-said/she-said. It’s all meaningless in the grand scheme of things, so I won’t bother wasting anymore words on it.

Instead I’ll reference a nightmare scenario that happened almost 40 years ago. It involves a Charlie Finley anecdote that I hadn’t fully heard until I read his 2010 biography some time ago. In the late 70’s, Finley was fighting a personal two-front war, an acrimonious divorce on one side and skyrocketing salaries that threatened his ability to operate the A’s on the other. (He also had other feuds with MLB Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, the Coliseum Commission and numerous players and agents, but I digress.) Knowing his time in baseball was running out, Finley chose to put the team up for sale as soon as 1977. Numerous suitors surfaced, some offering to keep the team in Oakland and other looking to move the franchise out at the end of the 1977 season. The most famous buyer was oil billionaire Marvin Davis, whose family was said to be the model for the soap opera Dynasty. Davis also owned the 20th Century Fox studio for some time before selling it to some Australian named Rupert Murdoch.

The difficult part of the move was the generally ironclad lease the Coliseum had with the A’s. It was a 20-year term, with an expensive buyout if the A’s left. As the Coliseum filed a $35 million lawsuit against Finley, Finley worked with Kuhn and Giants owner Bob Lurie to figure out a solution. Wait, what did Bob Lurie have to do with this?

Kuhn had been convinced that, with both teams showing poor attendance, the Bay Area was only a one-team market. He spoke to pols in both San Francisco and Oakland to work on a compromise, but in the end the Bay Area would be left with only one team. Previously, Lurie had bought the team from Horace Stoneham, saving SF from the prospect of moving the Giants to Toronto. Lurie was brought into the talks to figure out what role the Giants would have in a one-team Bay Area.

The solution, as architected by Kuhn and others before the 1978 season, would’ve been to have the A’s sold to Marvin Davis, which would’ve gotten rid of Kuhn’s nemesis Finley. Then in order to compromise on the Coliseum lease, the Giants would’ve played some number of games at the Coliseum, 25-40 depending on how the final deal was drawn up. In San Francisco the team would’ve been called the San Francisco Giants, while in Oakland the team would’ve been called simply the Giants. Kuhn recalled:

For the next three weeks, the politicians, the baseball administration and the lawyers struggled to find solutions. At last, amazingly, parity was agreed to. The team name would be the San Francisco Giants except in Oakland, where it would be the Giants. Financial payments to the Oakland Coliseum were set at $3.25 million. The internal fight within baseball was difficult when Finley would put up no more than $1 million as his share of the Coliseum payment. Even that we were able to persuade the clubs to accept. But, when we asked him [Finley] to waive claims of any kind against baseball, he balked.

Even though Finley was leaving baseball – forever – he still wanted to keep his right to sue just in case he felt he got ripped off. Finley was no stranger to courtrooms, so this could be expected. Still, you’d think that after all that work (and his building desperation) he would’ve waived that one right in order to finish the deal. The sale fell apart and Finley went into full fire sale mode, finally selling the team to the Haas family in 1980.

Consider the ramifications:

  • The Giants would’ve become the San Francisco Giants/Giants, probably playing most of the Oakland games before football season.
  • The buyout would’ve funded improvements to the Coliseum that Al Davis was seeking, improvements that probably would’ve kept the Raiders in Oakland.
  • From that point forward, the Bay Area would’ve been a one-team town, with a young, growing city like San Jose pursuing an expansion franchise.
  • Eventually, the team-sharing situation would’ve created a race between SF and Oakland to build a permanent home when leases at both Candlestick Park and the Coliseum expired in the late 80’s. Territorial rights would’ve included the “BART counties” plus Marin County.
  • Rickey Henderson, who was drafted in 1976, would’ve spent much of his career in Denver. The same could be said of Tony Armas and Dwayne Murphy, among others. Marvin Davis had the money to bolster the team’s payroll, so the chances of keeping a talented young team intact were very good.

So this Christmas, thank the ghost of Charlie Finley for being so selfish that he had to be able to sue – just in case. Without that, the Oakland Athletics would’ve been a 10 year experiment, a blip on the radar, an historical anomaly.

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(h/t Rob Neyer, who referenced the near-sale when the A’s-to-China Basin reports surfaced. I didn’t see his post until after I finished this one.)

12.19.13
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Reaction time

It would be silly to devote a post to every single new tidbit that comes out, so I’ll do one of those rare newswraps here.

  • The East Bay Express’s Robert Gammon reported that the previous group showing interest in buying the A’s (Don Knauss, Doug Boxer, Mike Ghielmetti) is back again talking up buying the franchise. This time, they’re not alone. There could be up to three groups, including one fronted by Warriors owners Joe Lacob and Peter Guber. Lacob and Guber were previously associated with the Dolich-Piccinini group in 2001. Lew Wolff continues to maintain that the team is not for sale.
  • Bill Shaikin of the LA Times partly shot down the Warriors connection when he contacted Guber, who said unequivocally that he’s not interested in the A’s. Lacob and others may be interested, though Lacob is not commenting at the moment.
  • BANG’s Marcus Thompson wrote a quite stirring column asking Oakland to act now to save the A’s in Oakland. Thompson also asked many of the important questions about both Howard Terminal and Coliseum City that currently have no answers.
  • SFGate has a new editorial imploring MLB to make a decision, once and for all. In the column is a quote from Wolff claiming that Howard Terminal’s cost would be more than $1 billion.

Pretty heavy news day, huh? Well, not according to KCBS’s Doug Sovern.

Is there actual news to report? Why yes there is!

  • The FCC is moving forward with its proposal to eliminate TV blackouts of sports broadcasts. The proposal mainly targets NFL games, so naturally the NFL opposes it.
  • The 49ers struck a partnership with fellow Santa Clara resident Intel for a major sponsorship & technology deal. Intel will provide a great deal of tech infrastructure while taking control of the big northwest gate.

Finally, Bizjournal’s Nate Donato-Weinstein has been tracking the iStar development and has an update. If you’re not aware, iStar is a developer and land owner tied to the Earthquakes stadium project. While the stadium is going up west of San Jose Airport, the iStar land is in South San Jose’s Edenvale neighborhood. The plan was to take some of the proceeds of various development activities at iStar and funnel them towards the stadium. The numbers:

  • 260,000 square feet of office space
  • 150,000 square feet of retail
  • 720 housing units
  • $10 million would be funneled to the stadium

Those numbers are important because they can provide a comparison to what is being proposed at Coliseum City.

  • 837,000 square feet of office space
  • 265,000 square feet of retail
  • 837 housing units
  • 2 hotels comprising 478 units

iStar went through numerous struggles and iterations as the recession ravaged the real estate market. Now that things are on the rebound, projects like iStar are picking up again. It’s surprising that despite the fairly large scope of the project, only $10 million is being made available. That’s one-sixth one-seventh the $60 $70 million budget for the Earthquakes stadium. Now consider that Coliseum City, whose Area A phases cover comparable development plans (other than the much greater office space) over a very long timeline. How much could the development activity realistically provide? $50 million? $100 million? While revenue sharing formulas will probably be different, there is a practical limit before eating into profitability. The Raiders stadium will cost more than 15 times as much as the Earthquakes’ new digs. Bridging the gap is the foremost issue for these stadium initiatives. Without that puzzle solved, there really isn’t much else to talk about.

12.16.13
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Initial renderings show Howard Terminal ballpark outside of BCDC jurisdiction

Howard Terminal ballpark backers are looking for solutions to get past the BCDC. In their case the solution appears to be to build the ballpark outside the area the BCDC regulates. Say, what is the BCDC’s jurisdiction, anyway? Glad you asked. From the website (emphasis mine):

The open water, marshes and mudflats of greater San Francisco Bay, including Suisun, San Pablo, Honker, Richardson, San Rafael, San Leandro and Grizzly Bays and the Carquinez Strait.

The first 100 feet inland from the shoreline around San Francisco Bay.

The portion of the Suisun Marsh-including levees, waterways, marshes and grasslands- below the ten-foot contour line.

Portions of most creeks, rivers, sloughs and other tributaries that flow into San Francisco Bay.

Salt ponds, duck hunting preserves, game refuges and other managed wetlands that have been diked off from San Francisco Bay.

At 50 acres in size, Howard Terminal is a large enough property that plans can be drawn up to move structures around so that they can avoid the BCDC. Ah, but it isn’t quite that simple. Part of Howard Terminal is a pier built over the estuary, so that area is considered tidelands and is in all likelihood within the BCDC’s jurisdiction. Waterfront Action has a map showing where various Tidelands Trust lands lie along the Oakland Estuary.

tidelands_downtown

Map of Tidelands Trust areas where development is highly restricted (note Victory Court’s location in upper right)

If you look at the Howard Terminal section, the Tidelands extend inland past the cranes, as much as 300 feet. Add another 100 feet to cover the BCDC boundary and you have the defined area that escapes the jurisdiction. That means that there could be as much as 400 feet from the water’s edge to the outer wall of the ballpark, the length of home plate to center field at the Coliseum (sorry, no splash hits folks). The BCDC could rule that the shoreline starts at the water’s edge, which would allow the ballpark to be built closer to the water. It will probably take the BCDC and the State Lands Commission to sort all of that out. The recently closed RFP for Howard Terminal explains this further:

Tidelands Trust Compliance

Howard Terminal is currently encumbered by the Tidelands Trust. Uses of the property are therefore generally limited to water oriented commerce, navigation, fisheries, and regional or state-wide recreational uses. Approval from the State Lands Commission would be required for any uses of the property that are not Tidelands Trust compliant. Many non-maritime activities are not considered Trust compliant uses and thus may require lengthy negotiations with the State Lands Commission, and potential legislation, before the Port could proceed with such non-Trust uses for the property.

Howard Terminal ballpark on west end of property

Whatever the final ruling is, filling in that empty area would be open space, which partly explains the presence of the cranes. The crane supports currently at Howard Terminal are nearly 120 feet deep from front to back. A promenade and open space fills that area, which is a good idea (you basically can’t get anything big developed in coastal California without providing open space these days).

Entirety of Howard Terminal with Downtown Oakland in background

A side effect of this placement is that the ballpark would actually be closer to the West Oakland BART station than the 12th Street Downtown Oakland station by a few hundred feet (4,800 vs. 5,100). In either case it’s a pretty lengthy distance and would be best bridged by shuttles.

Despite the placement of the ballpark in hopes of avoiding the BCDC, work done on the waterfront parts of the site would fall under the commission’s sway, even the conversion to open space. That’s because there is a land use covenant in place that is also highly restrictive, preventing all manner of structures from being built there without significant cleanup plans.

Now let’s look at one more picture. It’s an old one from the 2001 HOK study – the one that had Howard Terminal finishing among the worst with $177.5 million in needed infrastructure and other costs.

hok-2001-ht

2001 HOK study rendering of A’s ballpark at Howard Terminal

Note the differences between this image and the newer ones. In the newer renderings the ballpark is on the western half. In the older vision the ballpark’s on the eastern half. There’s also a convention center, hotel, and 1,900-space parking garage here. Mayor Quan referred to Howard Terminal as being zoned for a convention center, but was that an actual result of this study or similar efforts? I’ve seen no record to indicate this happened. In addition the 2001 HOK plan shows the original shoreline as reclaimed, but with a promenade extending out as connected piers, presumably to acknowledge the site’s 100 years as an operating port facility.

With these renderings, there are a few questions to carry forward.

  • It’s not at all clear how much control the BCDC has over the site. Where is the true BCDC jurisdictional boundary?
  • Given the site’s use as a port, how much say will the State Lands Commission have in lieu of the BCDC?
  • How much do the land use covenant’s restrictions affect the cost to build here?
  • Will a full cleanup be required, or can Oakland get away with limited cleanup if only certain uses are realized?

I’m sure there will be more questions to come. Those can be answered with a feasibility study and an environmental impact report.

12.14.13
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Quan touts regulatory-sidestepping Howard Terminal vision

UPDATE 12/16 12:00 AM – Matier and Ross finally have their column on Howard Terminal. The retention of the shipping cranes is a nice touch, even though they would be largely ornamental. Judging from the rendering, the right field fence would be 150-200 feet from the waterfront.

Howard Terminal ballpark on west end of property

What’s missing? Any explanation about how the City/Port could get around the BCDC and CEQA.

—–

Original post:

There are some days when you feel your work is validated. This is one of those days.

Oakland Mayor Jean Quan appeared at Save Oakland Sports’ year-end event last night, talking up a plan that, according to East Bay Citizen, “allows it to skip some regulatory hurdles.” Quan repeated something we heard from the summer, that Howard Terminal was zoned for a convention center. The only citations I can find from the City’s archives mention a possibility of a convention center from the 50’s, well before CEQA and modern land use initiatives. Currently Howard Terminal is zoned for industrial and maritime uses. While a zoning change is normally a simple City Council resolution item, the fact is that the Port itself identified numerous obstacles to making that change, namely the issue of maintaining maritime use at the site.

To that end, the Port of Oakland received three proposals for ongoing Port use at Howard Terminal. Two involve local concerns: Phil Tagami’s plan to use the site temporarily for either bulk or break bulk cargo, and Schnitzer Steel’s expansion plan, which is not explicitly a maritime use. The third plan comes from Kentucky coal mining company Bowie Resources Partners, in partnership with Dutch oil shipper Trafigura. Bowie’s an interesting proposition, as they export a great deal of their coal from the Port of Stockton. According to this press release, Bowie was in talks with the Port of Richmond to create a secondary shipping facility. Howard Terminal could work in a similar manner, though the precautions associated with shipping coal are enough to give one pause. Nevertheless the Port has to consider these options, since they need to figure out a way to offset the $10 million per year the Port will lose by idling Howard Terminal. A decision on how Howard Terminal will operate in the future is expected in the spring.

Ballpark proponents seem to be willing to play the long game here, with site readiness not coming for perhaps several years. Any continued use of the site for shipping purposes would potentially delay that readiness, unless a plan was put into place that allowed a ballpark to be built on a shut-down part of the site. At 50 acres in total size, there should be ways to make this happen. Developing the entire 50 acres would be another story.

Quan said that the to-be-released plan would be able to sidestep various environmental requirements, including some from the BCDC. However, that contradicts the Port’s own language from its Howard Terminal RFP:

11. Land Use and Permitting

In addition to any environmental regulatory oversight resulting from contamination, the Site is subject to the Tidelands Trust, consistent with the grants affecting the property with oversight from the California State Lands Commission. The San Francisco Bay Area Seaport Plan of the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission (“BCDC”) designates the Site for Port Priority Use. The Site is located within the City of Oakland, and is designated as General Industrial/Transportation Uses in the City of Oakland General Plan. Any proposed change of use or any proposed construction, maintenance or new development at the Site will be subject to environmental review pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act (“CEQA”).

The BCDC’s role has become more well known, as the fate of the Warriors’ Piers 30/32 arena plan is in the BCDC’s hands. However, note that the loudest clamoring over environmental impacts is not coming from the BCDC itself. Instead the noise is coming from opponents of the arena, who are using rules set by the BCDC and CEQA to invite greater scrutiny over the arena. While Howard Terminal lacks the picturesque quality of SF’s Embarcadero, it is still subject to BCDC regulations and should invite scrutiny on its own. The southeast corner of Howard Terminal is built on piers over water, just like Piers 30/32. Exactly what measures the City could use to get around CEQA and the BCDC are a complete mystery. I, for one, am looking forward to hearing it out.

The City had another waterfront site at one time in Victory Court. It was sold as a transit-friendly, partly publicly-owned, easy-to-acquire site that should cost less than $22 million to acquire. In keeping with that estimate, Oakland and East Bay business interests were willing to pledge up to $100 million to acquire and prep the site. At the time Mayor Quan touted Victory Court more vociferously than she is Howard Terminal now. Exploding costs ($240 million final site cost estimate) and the demise of redevelopment (downplayed as a factor as it was happening) effectively mothballed Victory Court, with no real public statement made by the City about what happened.

Whether you want to read this site as objective, slanted, or both, it’s important to get tough questions raised. That’s why I feel good about what Quan said yesterday. It’s proof that we’re doing our job well, that we’re asking the right questions, questions that need legitimate answers. Without this blog asking the tough questions, who will? East Bay media appears to be fine playing cheerleader. The City has been working behind the scenes to get site control, while not getting an EIR or even a feasibility study for Howard Terminal going.

So in the spirit of disclosure, let’s see the plan, Madam Mayor. Given her track record, the real situation is not expected to be as rosy as she often paints it. Matier and Ross supposedly got an exclusive on the plan, so we may see some real information as early as tomorrow.

12.10.13
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The false horse race narrative

Mark Purdy has a new column. It’s designed to get San Jose supporters to buck up, keep a stiff upper lip, hang in there, what have you. It has a bunch of quotes from the likes of San Jose Councilman Sam Liccardo and A’s managing partner Lew Wolff that trash Oakland. It’s a counterpoint to Marcus Thompson’s column from over the weekend that was meant to breathe life into the Keep-the-A’s-In-Oakland movement. Purdy laid odds, a generally weak tool to use for complicated situations like this:

Odds of the 2020 Athletics playing in a new Oakland ballpark: 25-1.

Odds of the 2020 Athletics playing in a new San Jose ballpark: 10-1.

Odds of the 2020 Athletics playing at AT&T Park: 50-1.

Odds of the 2020 Athletics playing in another part of the country: 80-1.

Odds of the 2020 Athletics still playing at decaying O.co Coliseum, with everybody still arguing about where they should move: 2-1.

Perhaps Steven Tavares from the East Bay Citizen spent too much time at Oakland’s City Council session tonight (the A’s lease extension was approved, BTW), but something in Purdy’s column flipped Tavares’s wig, leading to a litany of entertaining, rant-filled tweets. Among them:

 

 

You see, here is the problem. You have one guy laying odds, and another characterizing one party as in the lead. The brutal truth is that this type of narrative is completely useless. It’s bullshit. If you scratch the surface even a little bit, any oversimplified telling like this crumbles to dust. And there’s a simple reason for this.

There is no race.

We know what a horse race looks like. The showcasing of the Expos when MLB bought the team out from Jeff Loria is proof of that. Las Vegas and Portland were used in the process, and DC was taken. We’re not seeing that here. That’s not to say that MLB and either Commissioner Selig or his replacement will end up choosing between Oakland and San Jose at some point. They well could. The problem is that MLB doesn’t like either city’s plan, so it’s not going to choose either city. You can’t have a race when the judge thinks the two competitors don’t qualify. MLB would rather intervene only when it has to, say, when the A’s lease extension talks hit a snag. Then it can breath a sigh of relief, stretch it out a couple more years, and hope that a solution materializes.

Guess what? Oakland and San Jose pols are hoping for the same thing! Oakland is hoping that Wolff gives up and MLB kills off San Jose, so that they’re the only horse left. San Jose hopes that Oakland exposes itself as incapable of getting a deal done, forcing MLB to deal with San Jose. (At least San Jose is trying to force the issue with the lawsuit, but that’s a long shot at best.) None of these rather similar hope-based strategies are predicated on getting a site and pulling together financing.

Unless San Jose and Oakland provide something MLB wants ($$$ or an equivalent), MLB doesn’t have to listen to either one. When MLB negotiated the Coliseum extension, it didn’t set a deadline for Oakland to get a deal done. Selig didn’t tell Oakland to get Howard Terminal ready ASAP – hell, he didn’t do that for Victory Court either. If any substantive talks for a new ballpark are going to take place, MLB will have to be at the table brokering everything because of the intense mutual distrust between Oakland and A’s ownership. That’s exactly what happened in Miami (hello again, Loria!), and we know how badly that turned out. Yet do you hear about something like that happening in Oakland? Nope.

Now maybe MLB’s hand will be forced if Oakland decides to go with the Raiders’ preference of demolishing the Coliseum and leaving the A’s with no obvious place to play. Then it could support Wolff and say to Oakland, you made your choice. It could explore Howard Terminal further, though I suspect it has plenty of information on which to base a decision by now. It could go to San Jose, which would mean it would have to untangle the mess made by the Giants – who I hear have spent eight figures on legal work trying to derail the A’s and San Jose so far. As far as the A’s are concerned, MLB probably views them as an unstable Third World country on another continent. It would rather not get involved.

So until MLB actually decides to give a damn, let’s dispense with this horse race narrative. It’s not helpful and it only provides false hope to fans on either side of the divide, or even those who don’t particular care for a city and just want to keep the team in the Bay Area. It’s not fair to fans, and it’s a total distraction.

12.05.13
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Coliseum City page created

The other day Wendy Thurm asked me if there was a page of links and material related to Coliseum City that she could check out. There wasn’t, so I took some time to create one. The result is a curated, reverse chronologically-ordered list of posts, with a brief overview of the project. The link is simple enough:

There’s a new link in the sidebar as well, so you can reference it after this post disappears. Eventually I’ll do the same for other sites, but it will take awhile.

12.03.13
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The adult conversation, at last

It’s been awhile. Today’s unusual joint meeting of the Oakland City Council and the Alameda County Board of Supervisors was the first such joint session in several years. It’s also been more than a couple of years since I wrote a post titled The adult conversation, which implored Oakland (and Alameda County) to start talking about what it will truly take to keep the pro sports franchises in town, and what it might mean to lose one or more of them. After watching today’s proceedings, I can say that we’ve had our first session, one of many to come.

If you were an unabashed supporter of Coliseum City, things didn’t get off on the right foot as AlCo District 5 Supervisor and Board President Keith Carson demanded to know the state of the Coliseum’s outstanding debt. Oakland City Council President Pat Kernighan tried to reel the discussion back in, but Carson insisted, and eventually he got what he wanted – a plain telling of debt for both the stadium ($113,790,000) and arena ($90,290,000) by County Auditor Pat O’Connell, who also happens to be the JPA’s auditor. That’s $200 million combined for the complex, though that figure goes down every year thanks to a $20 million annual debt and operating subsidy paid by City and County. Carson emphasized that there will be no future project if debt isn’t addressed first. The debt may prove to be a structural problem, since whatever public borrowing has to be made for infrastructure or other uses will be on top of or consolidated with the existing debt. The City and County want the teams or the private development group, BayIG, to cover that debt as part of the plan. Incidentally, Carson’s district covers Berkeley, Albany, and much of Oakland.

The debt talk lingered for 10 minutes, then Kernighan got the discussion back on the rails. Assistant City Administrator Fred Blackwell gave an overview of the current situation, with the renewed leases for the Raiders and A’s, their desires, and the Warriors’ plans. Blackwell said that the funding gap for the Raiders stadium, which he called a “sunken cost,” was $400-500 million after the Raiders’ contribution. AlCo Supe Scott Haggerty cast doubt on the viability of the three venue configuration of Coliseum City, noting that so far only the Raiders have been willing to listen. Haggerty suggested that the most effort should be put towards the Raiders’ venue because of that reality, and that the A’s, who don’t even have a set date for their Phase III ballpark, could easily show that information to MLB and say, “we’re not even on the radar.” CM Desley Brooks, a previous JPA Board member, expressed doubt in a different way, citing the need for multi-use venues instead of single-sport venues. Brooks was also concerned that the project wouldn’t pencil out, asking for a pro forma for that configuration (and others, presumably).

Next up in the presentation were two members of Oakland’s Office of Neighborhood Investment, Larry Gallegos and Gregory Hunter. Gallegos gave more detail about the project’s phases and master plan. Due to the photocopied quality of the images, I skipped over this slide initially. Upon closer inspection, something needs to be explained further.

View of Coliseum City development phases

View of Coliseum City development phases

The top image, Phase I, shows an outdoor football stadium, some ancillary development, and outlines for the “spine” of the project and the ballpark. The next image shows a dome on top of the stadium and the spine in place. Hold the phone – is the dome part of Phase II? There’s no other mention of a dome anywhere else in the presentation, nor was it brought up during today’s session. That dome, assuming that it is part of Phase II, is no trivial matter at $300 million to construct. Oakland Mayor Jean Quan has been pushing for a dome, and while the interest in holding conventions and other types of events is understandable, it seems like this rather important detail was merely snuck into the preso with no explanation whatsoever.

Discussion then centered on the phases and once again, the venue configuration. Blackwell admitted that if only the Raiders’ stadium were built, ancillary development potential may be limited as few examples of such a plan were found. The limited number of football game dates contributes to this problem. CM Rebecca Kaplan, a staunch supporter of Coliseum City, talked up the need for more density within the project as that’s where the payoff is. Of course, that brings to mind the question of whether Coliseum City is even feasible if it never goes past Phase I. In addition, how dependent is the project on Phases II and III to provide enough funding for everything? Those questions won’t be answered until the spring.

Mayor Quan repeated her usual hackneyed sports metaphor and pushed for more information. If that’s the case, why did this meeting occur because of a letter from Carson to the City of Oakland? Quan, who hastily made her remarks before heading to the airport, is supposed to be the champion of this project. Yet Kaplan is clearly the more informed, more passionate advocate. Someone desperately needs to grab this thing by the reins and control it, as it’s considerably late for all this confusion given the very tight timeline imposed on the City and County. CM Libby Schaaf was silent during the session, just hours after she filed papers to run against Quan for mayor in 2014.

Hunter talked about the goals and key elements of the project, one of which is the property transfer element. It’s unclear what that means. City has indicated in the past that it’s not willing to give away land, and may not even be interested in selling land. Unfortunately for them, the only valuable resource the JPA has at its disposal is land. Discussion of this topic was deferred to the DDA, though it will clearly become a hot topic before then.

Members of the public spoke, followed by questions and remarks by members of the City Council and Board of Supervisors. General bewilderment gave way to soapbox speeches. CM Larry Reid, already on the outs with the JPA, claimed that Quan took credit for his concept while calling Coliseum City “insane.” Supe and JPA board president Nate Miley asked if there had been an appraisal on land the JPA owns. Hunter said it wasn’t. Miley expressed frustration that developer BayIG hasn’t put down earnest money to kickstart some of these studies. Blackwell said that only recently the agreement was finalized in which BayIG (Colony Capital & HayaH Holdings) replaced Forest City as the investor group. Miley then dropped a mini bombshell when he asked if the City could buy out the County’s half of the JPA. Blackwell laughed it off, replying that the City didn’t have the resources to pull off such a move. Nevertheless, it’s quite telling that Miley could even suggest that the Coliseum is such an albatross that the County would be fine divesting its share. There’s also a situation in which the County could buy the City’s half. Judging from the across-the-board sentiments from the Supes, that seems even less likely.

Other notes:

  • District 2 Supe Richard Valle: “Gifting of public funds to any franchise is not part of my political framework.”
  • There was continued confusion over Howard Terminal. Blackwell mentioned that the Port of Oakland has to explore all possible maritime uses before moving to non-maritime uses like a ballpark. That would explain why a recent RFP for Howard Terminal makes no mention of a ballpark.
  • There was no discussion about how long the teams would be displaced or where they would play if Coliseum City came to fruition.
  • Blackwell mentioned that the market study, which is key to determining the project’s feasibility, would be delayed 30 days.
  • I tweeted that the football stadium deal could come by the end of the 2014 NFL season, but that seems like a long ways away considering the amount of work that has to be done.
  • Brooks got in a shot when she said that leverage had “walked out the door” when the new lease extensions were approved.

As the first substantive meeting of this kind for Coliseum City, it was bound to be at times painful and awkward, and it sure delivered. That’s part of the process and a welcome one, because there’s no way in hell this thing moves forward without much greater detail. Everyone on the dais was keenly aware of the political fallout that could occur with a bad deal. The Board of Supervisors felt that Oakland was leading and dragging them into the deal, which brought about Carson’s letter and this session. There was a general consensus that communication about the project has been poor. Right now there’s a lot of skepticism to go around, most of it healthy. Project proponents have every opportunity to whip up sentiment and numbers to back their claims of renaissance and jobs. As long as the numbers are there, Coliseum City has a fighting chance. If it doesn’t pencil out, that information and the new short-term leases will conspire to make MLB’s and NFL’s decisions easy. And they’ll make today’s recriminations look like a civil dinner party.

11.29.13
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Oakland/Alameda County to discuss/vote on Coliseum City framework Monday

The City of Anaheim is poised to give away development rights for virtually all of the land surrounding Angels Stadium in exchange for two simple things: the team staying in Anaheim, and the city no longer having to pay to maintain the old stadium. Is that too much to give? We’re about to find out in Orange County, and the same could be said in Oakland, where Colony Capital is being asked to provide hundreds of millions to bridge a funding gap at Coliseum City.

How big a funding gap? It depends on the scope of the project. Planning aspects of Coliseum City will be shown in presentation Monday to the Alameda County Board of Supervisors and the Oakland City Council for discussion and a vote. The session will be held at 1:30 PM, which means that there probably won’t be many members of the public on hand.

Three phases of Coliseum City have ballpark built out at the end of the project

Three phases of Coliseum City have ballpark built out at the end of the project

Initially, the football stadium would be built along with needed infrastructure to support future development. Included would be transportation improvements, which indicates to me that they’re counting on the transit funding that was narrowly voted down in 2012. Stadium capacity remains within a broad range, and there’s no indication of whether it will have a retractable or fixed dome.

Phase II looks relatively modest, as it includes a lot of housing and limited retail (40,000 square feet). By comparison, Bay Street Emeryville has 382,000 square feet of retail and 400 housing units. It would commence in 2019, the year following the completion of the Raiders’ stadium. Also included would be a 220-room, 3.5 star hotel, signifying a mainstream brand such as Sheraton, Hilton, etc.

The final phase is most aggressive, as it likely anticipates a boom sufficient enough to make Phase III buildout feasible. Along with the ballpark there would be over 15,000 parking spaces (presumably in garages), an “Upscale” hotel, much more retail space, and nearly a million square feet of office towers. At any point one or more of these components could be removed or  scaled back, which is often the case in such large projects. Since the A’s haven’t signed on with the project in any capacity, there’s no date for the ballpark’s opening. Also not included is the replacement arena, which is technically part of Area B from a planning standpoint (the focal Area A is the Coliseum and land east of 880).

Planned goals for Exclusive Negotiating Agreement

Planned goals for Exclusive Negotiating Agreement

coliseumcity-preso_ena

Additional goals for the Exclusive Negotiating Agreement

We’ve covered the complexity of Coliseum City as a development project in the past. The presentation works to delineate the many issues. Compared to the DDA of the 49ers stadium in Santa Clara, Coliseum City is several orders of magnitude more complex. The big X factor is the $100+ million in remaining debt on Mt. Davis, which Mayor Quan and the City Council have said has to be baked into the new deal. There will be some sort land sale agreement that will invite scrutiny, as that’s a major key for the cost assessment for Colony Capital. Colony has some limited experience in the football realm, having recently partnered with the Chargers on their stalled (or failed depending on who you ask) plans in Downtown San Diego. This is an important framework from which many important questions about Coliseum City will be answered. Better late than never.

11.23.13
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Coliseum Authority approves Raiders/A’s lease extensions

Update 11/25 9:10 AM – Resolutions passed nearly unanimously, with one vote against.

 

 

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Original post from Saturday:

In your typical Friday disclosure before a hastily called meeting, the Coliseum Authority (JPA) released its agenda for a Monday board meeting in which it will vote on short-term lease extensions for both the Athletics and Raiders. It’s funny to see how the negotiations have progressed. The A’s offered up a 5-year deal last year which the JPA ignored because it thought it had leverage, only to be that perceived leverage taken away by MLB two weeks ago. The Raiders have talked up a long-term deal, but only if it came with a serious plan for a new stadium. The resolutions that the JPA board is looking to pass will undoubtedly amplify the uncertainty surrounding the two franchises. Highlights:

  • The A’s will get a two-year extension with no additional option years, thus extending the lease through December 31, 2015.
  • The A’s would pay a slightly higher rent payment than previously negotiated at $1.5 million per year.
  • In addition, the A’s would pay a mere $250,000 to maintain control over concessions.
  • The parking revenue dispute between the A’s and JPA would go to arbitration, which should be decided before the end of 2014. The A’s would agree to put the disputed amount (not disclosed) in escrow.

It’s good to see that the parking issue will be resolved soon. Apparently the A’s are raising parking prices for 2014, which makes the actions seem linked. The big takeaway is that the JPA caved on concessions. Under the new terms, the A’s have the right to choose a new concessionaire, whose contract may long extend past the A’s stay in the Coliseum. However, you have to think that any concessions contract has to factor in the significantly lower value of the Coliseum should the A’s and/or Raiders leave. Yes, this could mean Aramark is replaced by someone else.

  • The Raiders have a one-year deal for the 2014-15 season. The Raiders would pay $400,000 in addition to the revenue splits they currently share with the JPA. The end of the lease is described as 45 days after the end of the team’s season.
  • The Raiders could pay up to $525,000 per year to use their Harbor Bay headquarters in Alameda.
  • The lease terms acknowledge that the Raiders may play one regular season or preseason home game away from the Coliseum (London in 2014).

Also wrapped up in the Raiders’ extension language is something that I’d like to call the Santa Clara clause.

7.5 Additional Payments for Use of Permanent Training Facility and Training Site. If the Raiders announce a relocation or sign a lease to play football games outside of the City of Oakland or Alameda County for the 2015 season prior to March 1, 2015, then, commencing on March 1, 2015, Raiders shall have the option of continuing to use the Permanent Training Facility and Training Site for up to twenty-four (24) months, up to and including February 28, 2017 as determined in Raiders’ discretion and Raiders shall make an additional payment to Licensor each month for continued use of the Permanent Training Facility and Training Site in an amount equal to the fair market rental value of the Permanent Training Facility and Training Site on a monthly basis, as determined by a mutually agreeable licensed commercial real estate broker based on comparable rental space. Raiders and Licensor agree that the fair market rental value shall not exceed $525,000 per year. In the event the Raiders are engaged in good faith discussions concerning an extension of the Operating License or other arrangement for the Raiders to play future Football Events in the OACC Stadium as of March 1, 2015, any obligation to make payments shall not commence while such discussions are continuing and the twenty-four (24) month period and obligation to make additional payments shall begin when Raiders agrees to play football games at a location other than OACC Stadium for the 2015 seasonal provided, however, that if Raiders agrees to play football at such other location, Raiders shall pay such rental payments retroactively from March 1, 2015.

Got that? The Raiders won’t be charged to use the Alameda headquarters as long as they’re in talks about Coliseum City, even if they’re playing somewhere other than the Coliseum for 2015 and 2016. If the Raiders play elsewhere while using HQ and aren’t in talks over Coliseum City, they pay $525,000 annually. Obviously, the only place where they could play in this scenario (and while the Coliseum is demolished, presumably) is Santa Clara. UC Berkeley is forbidden by legal settlement from hosting NFL games, and Palo Alto would sue Stanford to high heaven for even considering it.

Both extensions should be easily passed, unless one or more of the commissioners complain that the terms are too favorable to the teams. The teams are effectively trading rent payments, and the JPA’s incoming revenues will not make much of a dent in ongoing debt service. At least the JPA will get the parking revenue they’ve clamoring for, which at the very least should help pay for additional Coliseum City studies or minimal prep work. As for scoreboards – you weren’t banking on that, were you?

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P.S. – The resolutions would have to be passed by Oakland’s City Council and Alameda’s Board of Supervisors shortly after JPA approval.