Category Archives: Owners

12.10.10
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Put up or…

‘Tis the season to put up or shut up. We have a few examples at our disposal.

Robert Gammon reports that Oakland’s CEDA committee will examine the financing proposal for the $750,000 Victory Court ballpark EIR. The meeting is next Tuesday at 1:30 PM @ Oakland City Hall. If it is approved in committee, the City Council will vote on it the following Tuesday, December 21. There are three choices going forward:

  • Choose not to pay for the study. Gammon expects that the only dissenter on the committee will be Ignacio De La Fuente, with IDLF and Nancy Nadel the two members of the City Council who are opposed.
  • Authorize $350k for the initial traffic study. A complete traffic study hasn’t been completed in the JLS area for a decade, so the information could prove valuable for any number of future projects, including a ballpark.
  • Authorize all $750k. This should cover the complete EIR, including the traffic study.

LSA Associates, the Berkeley firm that did EIR work for both the Fremont and San Jose ballpark proposals, is doing this one as well if approved. Traffic study work is usually farmed out to a different set of consultants, that’s why it can be separated out.

In the unlikely event that either the CEDA committee or the City Council voted against the study funding, the message to MLB would be in effect a white flag. They could just authorize the traffic study and either wait until MLB renders a decision or ask MLB for some funding help. Previously I wrote that the latter was a good idea, however when I read that MLB has paid for all of the work up to this point, maybe that’s not such a good idea. Oakland may have to pay the whole $750k just to show that it has some skin in the game.

Over in TV land, if you are a Dish Network subscriber and a Sharks fan, someone on high doesn’t love you much. Yet another carriage squabble has occurred, this time between Dish and Comcast over CSN California. The dispute has viewers blaming both parties. Dish has always been the “budget” satellite alternative, with DirecTV having long been the true sports fan’s choice thanks in large part to its exclusive right to broadcast NFL Sunday Ticket. Hopefully they’ll get this resolved before the A’s season starts, or Dish loses a ton of subscribers.

Down south near the border, Escondido continues to struggle with authorizing $50 million for a new ballpark for the now homeless Padres AAA affiliate, formerly the Portland Beavers. The ballpark proposal is being fast-tracked so that it can be ready in time for the 2012 season (17 months from now), which sounds like a bad idea. Unlike Santa Clara, which at least had three years to study the 49ers stadium deal, the similarly sized Escondido is only getting a few months. $50 million in redevelopment funds would tap the agency’s budget for the next decade. Padres owner  Jeff Moorad is trying to buy the team, but the deal appears to be contingent upon getting the Escondido deal done. Portland is out of the question because PGE Park is being renovated for soccer. Tucson will be the interim home, though it’s possible Tucson could become the next long-term home. A MOU between the City and Moorad’s group is available here.

Speaking of fast-tracking, AEG’s Tim Leiweke is really pushing his vision of a retractable roof NFL stadium in downtown LA. The stadium, which would replace the West Hall of the LA Convention Center, would have “up to 72,000 fixed seats, 14,700 club seats and 40 field-level suites among its 218 skyboxes.” Apparently AEG isn’t demanding an ownership stake in whatever team moves there, though I’ll believe that when the ink is dry.

12.06.10
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Avoid the golden sombrero. Buy KTRB.

Over the weekend, Rich Lieberman posted an update on the KTRB sale that doesn’t move the ball forward much. At least he implores the team to buy the station, which I wholeheartedly agree with. For those that need a refresher, the A’s flagship station, KTRB-860 AM, went into receivership a few months ago as its owner, Pappas Broadcasting, continued to endure difficult bankruptcy proceedings. The A’s were a finalist to buy the station, but word was that they weren’t willing to overpay, whatever overpaying meant. Different figures were floated over the price of the station, Big Vinny believes it’s $12 million including debt.

The A’s have been able to forge solid TV and radio deals (CSN California and KTRB respectively), and they’ve gotten their feet wet having to organize programming since the station went into receiver during the last part of the regular season. They should by all rights be able to buy the station and turn it around.

Buying the station should be a complete no-brainer now that Billy Beane has struck out on three potential acquisitions. First it was Lance Berkman, who went to St. Louis. Then it was Adrian Beltre, who has now rejected the A’s twice. Now it’s Japanese pitcher Hisashi Iwakuma, for whom the A’s won the right to sign him by posting $19.1 million to his current team. The A’s had a 30-day negotiation period during which they could sign Iwakuma to a player contract, but the two sides were far apart on the money. That means that Iwakuma goes back to Japan and, if he performs well this upcoming season, will be a highly sought and even more highly paid free agent next winter (hello, Beltre).

Since the A’s are getting their $19.1 million back, why not make the big bid for the radio station? If the number truly is $12 million, it shouldn’t take much more than that to get the station’s transmitter issues resolved. There are scant few free agents worth eight figures per year at this point and possibly fewer who want to play in Oakland. That doesn’t mean giving up the free agent ghost, it just means shifting sights a bit lower with the hope that a few more 2 WAR guys makes up for not having a single 5 WAR guy.

Having a good radio station is part of a team’s media foundation. Owning a station that has good reception and programming will only increase the franchise’s value and revenue opportunities, so the move really is a no-brainer. Do the right thing, owners. Turn the page on this crappy hot stove period and get cracking on the radio station, because it’s a long-term investment that can really pay off. You know this. Buy KTRB.

12.05.10
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A big hedge

As part of Susan Slusser’s preview of next week’s owner’s meetings in Orlando, there’s a couple of paragraphs devoted to the stadium situation.

There has been speculation that Major League Baseball’s committee examining the A’s stadium might issue its findings during the meetings, but team owner Lew Wolff said that he does not believe that will be the case, though an announcement should come soon. “All we want is a yes or a no,” Wolff said of efforts to get approval for a stadium in San Jose.

So an announcement should come soon, but not next week. Calgon, take me away!

A year ago, I wrote about three options that MLB could pursue regarding the A’s. They could either A) approve a move south, B) deny the move, or C) give Oakland one more shot with a deadline. Given the recent news on Oakland’s front, such as it is (and the lack of news on MLB’s part), option C would appear to have been the choice, in retrospect. Whether Oakland is getting a full shot is unclear, they’ve gotten at the very least a year. Yet there are plenty of things that don’t seem to fit that make me wonder what the real endgame is here.

Earlier in the fall, there were murmurs of a pending decision, which South Bay boosters have held onto ever since. Wolff’s retreat from that position in Slusser’s piece indicates that something may have changed, but to what extent? Wolff has held firm to wanting a “yes or no” from Selig, while the boosters have framed the South Bay as a chance to “explore” the territory. MLB appears to be in communication with both San Jose and Oakland city governments, giving the whole affair the appearance of a horse race.

If you ask me, “horse race” is not the proper term. “Contingency plan” is much more apropos. I get the sense that with the economy the way it is, the difficulty in getting things done in California, the T-rights issue affecting San Jose, and the uncertainty regarding Oakland’s ability to pull a deal off, MLB may view a dual-track plan as the best course of action right now.

First, let’s understand what the Bay Area means to MLB from a historical context. If you read the blog post from before Thanksgiving, you might see the Bay Area as one big bag of fail. Couple that with the litany of failed attempts to get something built for the Giants, aborted attempts to move by both the Giants and A’s (Tampa Bay and Denver respectively), and a lengthy delay in getting the only new MLB ballpark in California built (PETCO), you might actually excuse MLB for not believing that any ballpark plan in the Bay Area was a sure thing. Frankly, I’d be cautious too.

And so it may be that MLB is going to approach the A’s solution in a manner that won’t satisfy boosters from either San Jose or Oakland. It’s highly possible that MLB will foster Oakland’s efforts, while granting Wolff his chance to “explore” the South Bay simultaneously. Those of you pro-Oakland folks will look at this and say that The Town will be screwed since San Jose is so far ahead in the process. Well, nothing stopped Oakland from starting this process a year or at worst six months ago, instead of now. The nice thing politically about the way Oakland has gone about this is that they haven’t had to spend any money or make any significant decisions. Now we’ve got IDLF demanding that MLB commit to Oakland before they spend money on an EIR, which probably got many a chuckle going in NYC and Milwaukee. MLB doesn’t have to commit to anything. In fact, they can turn it around and pay for some or all of the EIR, thereby forcing Oakland to start making some decisions.

As for San Jose, they’re not the undisputed winners, at least not yet. They’ll have one chance. That’s it. While Oakland officials have pointed to a 2015 opening day for a Victory Court ballpark, San Jose won’t have as long, with a 2014 opening looming instead. The 2013 end of the Coliseum lease makes this a necessity. There may also be some lingering disinterest in opening the T-rights can until San Jose is completely in the bag, which right now it isn’t at all. Political capital for Selig to get consensus from the owners may not happen until everything is signed, sealed, and delivered. Selig won’t move until he has that consensus. And as long as a referendum is the deciding factor, he may not want to push all of his chips towards San Jose.

Oakland, then, is a hedge. Suppose that MLB helps fund the EIR, just as they’ve promised to partly fund San Jose’s special election. Since it’s unlikely that Wolff would be involved in an Oakland ballpark, MLB could arrange an ownership change to Oakland interests once the ballpark deal was in place, probably by buying the team Expos-style. Knowing the position in which they sit, Oakland has to decide whether to move forward or not. There will be some who are clearly offended by being placed second in the process. They may ask to pull out of the running entirely. Or they could take advantage of the opportunity, following through on all of the necessary steps just in case San Jose blows up – just as Fremont and Coliseum North did. Is it a long shot? There’s no denying it. Over the last 15 years Oakland’s made missteps and had the deck stacked against them. Yet it still has a chance, however remote, of keeping the A’s. To not work with that would be the utmost display of spite and would give MLB every excuse to finalize the move to San Jose without the slightest tinge of regret.

For many who are wrapped up in civic identity, the A’s saga is a zero-sum game. For someone to win, the opponent has to lose. For the rest of us A’s fans, it’s not zero-sum at all. We just want the A’s to stay local and for the era of free agent sluggers spurning us to end. For different reasons, MLB probably has a similar view. They want 30 vital teams. Despite the occasional talk of contraction by tinfoil hatters out there, Selig doesn’t want the failure of two contracted teams on his resume. There’s a decent chance that if San Jose doesn’t work out, Oakland will get its chance, and if that doesn’t work out – well, someone’s been thinking about what might happen in that case.

12.02.10
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The chattering class takes their turn

In the Trib, Gary Peterson asks for Bud Selig to show some leadership and settle this once and for all, even though he thinks Selig pretty much already has this figured out. Craig Calcaterra feels the same way.

But our inner realist understands that Selig isn’t nearly that disengaged. It’s entirely possible, bordering on likely, that the great consensus builder knows how MLB owners feel about the Giants’ territorial rights, has a pretty good idea what the outcome of this conflict is going to be, understands why it has to be that way, and has figured out a way to get from here to there. The rest is just time-consuming mechanics — glad-handing, horse trading, making the money work.

Meanwhile, Mark Purdy is pissed and has his talking points in order. So does the Merc’s editorial board.

Keep the comments thread civil, everyone.

11.24.10
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There’s trying, and then there’s trying

This Thanksgiving, we should all be thankful that, despite the often misplaced or ill-timed effort, many people have been trying to keep the A’s in the Bay Area. To illustrate this, I’ve put together a map showing pretty much all of the sites that have been considered for a ballpark over the last 15 years. Below the map is a brief history and the fate of each site.

bayarealocations

Competing sites:

  • # – Victory Court. Emerged as the preferred ballpark location by the City of Oakland after the unveiling of four sites by Let’s Go Oakland in December 2009. EIR process has begun, initial comment period open. Public hearing on December 1 to elicit public comments.
  • * – Diridon (South). Preferred San Jose site picked after two year deliberation process. EIR completed in 2009, a 3+ year process.

HOK East Bay study sites:

  • A – Howard Terminal. Waterfront site immediately west of Jack London Square. Eventually was leased by Matson to consolidate shipping operations.
  • B – Oak to Ninth. Waterfront site east of Jack London Square. Has development plans for 3100 homes, parkland, and commercial uses.
  • C – Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. Home of the current stadium, has had interest from different parties for a ballpark elsewhere within the complex. Both the Raiders and A’s have leases through 2013. The Coliseum Authority is working with the Raiders on a football-specific successor to the Coliseum immediately to the south of the existing stadium.
  • D – Laney College. Plans envisioned replacing the college’s athletic fields with a ballpark. Peralta Community College District was not interested in such a use.
  • E – Uptown. The preferred site from the study due to its downtown location and access to mass transit and parking infrastructure. Any chance of a ballpark was derailed when the A’s showed little interest and the site’s chief proponent was fired and a developer-friendly housing scheme was heavily promoted. An apartment complex is now on site.
  • F – Pleasanton. One of two southern Alameda County sites included in the study. Was undeveloped back then, is still undeveloped now.
  • G – Fremont. The other southern Alameda County choice, the site was north of the NUMMI (now Tesla Motors) site. The area would be reconsidered several years later for another shot at a ballpark, but NIMBY resistance helped kill it.

San Jose study sites:

  • I – FMC/Airport West. Old military vehicle plant was briefly considered thanks to central location within Santa Clara Valley. Was eliminated in favor of a more urban locale. Became the site of the future San Jose Earthquakes stadium.
  • II – Reed & Graham. An asphalt plant next to I-280. Eliminated early on due to infrastructure issues. Plant still in operation.
  • III – Del Monte Cannery. A single-owner site that was ready for redevelopment, just north of Reed & Graham. A developer showed interest in building condos on the site, which is eventually what happened.
  • IV – Berryessa Flea Market. Located on San Jose’s east side, its major advantages were its size, a single owner, and its location near a future BART station. Like the Del Monte Cannery, the site has plans for future residential development. Such work has not yet started and may not commence for several years.

A’s ownership promoted sites:

  • 1 – Coliseum South. Site pitched by Lew Wolff shortly after he was hired by Schott/Hofmann. Ownership agreed to pay 50% towards a study on the site, which included the HomeBase and Malibu lots. The Coliseum Authority balked. In 2010, the Authority bought the land with an eye towards a Raiders stadium and ancillary development plan.
  • 2 – Santa Clara. North of Great America, the site was also considered for a Santa Clara ballpark plan over a decade prior. In order to prevent a ballpark from being built, the City added a street through the property that gets very little vehicular use.
  • 3 – Coliseum North (High/66th). A broad redevelopment plan that would have bought 100 acres of industrial zoned land and changed the zoning to residential/commercial, with a ballpark as the centerpiece. Existing landowners balked at moving and Wolff/Fisher were not willing to pay much more than a nominal amount for the land, leading to the plan’s demise.
  • 4 – Pacific Commons. Took the Coliseum North redevelopment concept and moved it to Fremont, on Cisco/Catellus-owned light industrial (yet undeveloped) land. Plan died as the broader economy went into the tank in 2007.
  • 5 – Warm Springs. Rebirth of the original Fremont plan would’ve had the ballpark decoupled from the residential and commercial components. Area residents decried the location’s proximity to local homes and the lack of road infrastructure. The plan came and went quickly, which made the team look further south.

Have a good Thanksgiving, everyone.

11.10.10
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New Wolff Interview on AN

If you haven’t seen it already, go to Athletics Nation (Happy 7th Birthday) and read Blez’s interview with Lew Wolff, Part 1. It brings us up-to-date on where we stand and may answer a few – but obviously not all – questions you may have about the process. I prefer to leave the discussion there as it’s already quitely lively, but if you have any questions that I may be able to provide some clarification, shoot here and I’ll give it a shot. Jeffrey’s been in the comments thread there, so have at it.

Speaking of Jeffrey, he recorded a take on the Giants’ WS win for KQED Perspectives. I can safely say that we’re in the same boat, even the Giants fan Uncle Larry part.

Part 2 of the AN-Wolff Interview is up. In it, Wolff addresses whether or not Fremont was merely a ruse, his own performance as owner, and several other topics. Part 3 is tomorrow.

I’m planning on writing a response post tomorrow after Part 3.

11.08.10
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Larry Ellison vs. SF Giants

As Gavin Newsom begins his switch from a real job to a ceremonial one, he has a few matters left to which he has to attend. A key development issue, according to Matier and Ross, is San Francisco’s America’s Cup bid. As the winner of the last Cup, Larry Ellison gets to decide where the next one is held, and the only US bid comes from SF. A couple different proposals have come in, both of which would exchange the development rights for select piers for the cost to rebuild them, a cost that the City can’t take on at the moment. A similar kind of development project is already underway in the relocation of the Exploratorium, which will move east from the Palace of Fine Arts to Piers 15 and 17.

Initially, the project’s location was going to be Piers 48 and 50, which are adjacent to AT&T Park’s main parking lots. This shifted to Piers 30 and 32, just south of the Bay Bridge, where Red’s Java House is located. Ellison has nixed the 30-32 idea, perhaps because he doesn’t want to work right next to/underneath a bridge.

The Giants are objecting to 48-50 because construction work there could be disruptive to the Giants’ plans for those parking lots, to which they have development rights. It’s highly likely that some of that land may have to be used as a staging area for construction equipment and the like.

It gets more interesting when you consider that Oracle has been a charter sponsor of the Giants, with its name on the ballpark’s suite level since the beginning.

So who’s going to win out? Surely the Giants can delay their plans for a couple of years while the waterfront beautification project happens. After all, the two key uses that the Giants have identified, a 5,000-seat concert hall or a NBA arena, aren’t exactly going to materialize for quite some time. The region isn’t begging for a 5,000-seat venue. The Bill Graham Civic Auditorium (7,000) is old but serviceable, the Warfield and the Fillmore cover sub-3,000 crowds quite nicely. On the other side of the bay Another Planet has cornered the market on mid-sized venues, as it has the Greek Theatre in Berkeley (5-8,000) and Oakland’s Fox Theatre (2,800). In the South Bay, San Jose State’s Event Center holds exactly 5,000. As for an arena, well, that would be easier to deal with if Larry Ellison owned the Warriors, you think? Even then, the W’s lease runs at least through 2017, with the team owners being liable for the remaining debt service if they don’t sign extensions that would keep the team until 2027. If the Giants decide on a concert hall, their dreams of a SF arena will vanish. If they decide to wait for an NBA team, they’ll be waiting quite a long time.

This round should go to Larry Ellison. A project like this comes around very rarely. If the Cup is staged locally, Ellison will be a very busy guy, probably too busy to entertain Oakland partisans’ dreams for him to wrest the A’s from Wolff/Fisher and build a ballpark in Oakland. Seriously, can anyone out there point to a single quote that can back up Ellison’s interest in the A’s?

11.07.10
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It’s like clockwork

It’s been about 3 months since the last time Dave Newhouse ripped Lew Wolff, so you had to figure it was time for Newhouse to drop another diatribe. It starts out by calling Wolff a liar, then the usual bid for canonization of Wally Haas, then a carpetbagger tag for good measure.

That union led to something beautiful — three straight World Series, 2.9 million attendees one season and a community bonding second to none in baseball.

Yes, the same community bonding that made attendance in the strike-shortened 1994 season (the last of the Haas era) 13th out of the 14 AL teams.

The tendency towards repetition is the major reason why I don’t feel the need to quote or respond to his rantings. This time, however, I figure it’s important to point out a few things.

But, MLB, remember this: Wolff’s initial lie was that the A’s must be near BART and the freeway whenever a new ballpark is built. Fremont fulfilled one-half of that requirement — BART was 2 miles away — and San Jose also fulfills one-half, but it doesn’t have BART.

Does Newhouse not understand that demographics and requirements change depending on the site? Of course BART is required in a place BART was previously used. If you spin out a radius of 20 miles from anywhere in Oakland, BART should be readily available. That can’t happen in San Jose, at least for several years. But in San Jose, people are used to getting to and from places without BART. Will East Bay fans find a San Jose ballpark less accessible? Of course they will. Will they be replaced by South Bay fans? Yes, they will. Why? Because it’s Major League Baseball at a fancy new ballpark near them. Some of them will be A’s fans. Others will be casual, hopefully some of them can be converted.

Later on, Newhouse espouses the virtues of the Coliseum’s location and plugs other sites.

And that isn’t the only available ballpark space in Oakland. There are two spots in Jack London Square, though it would take two businesses, Peerless Coffee and East Bay Restaurant Supply, to shift a bit to make it happen.

This may be doable for one business, not both. But Oakland City Councilmember Ignacio De La Fuente assured me that the most aesthetically pleasing spot — the Oak to 9th Project by the Estuary — remains available. It’s closer to the freeway than BART, but that site is every bit as attractive as the AT&T Park locale.

I find it interesting that Newhouse suggests that getting both Peerless and EBRS to relocate isn’t feasible. So does that mean that Victory Court is by extension infeasible? First I’ve heard of that. Beyond that, once again he’s being fed the same old nonsense by IDLF and Signature about O29 being doable – even though O29 has not been in the discussion for nearly a decade. Only Newhouse ever brings up O29, despite the lack of infrastructure and other challenges that would make it much more difficult to accomplish than Victory Court, 980, or even the Coliseum. Doesn’t it seem strange that while various real estate developers push for Victory Court to boost their own peripheral developments, one of those major developments could easily be cast aside for a ballpark? I’ll tell you why: those development projects aren’t as good as advertised. It’s not their fault that they were hung out to dry after the real estate collapse. Plenty of very rich developers have been left in similar circumstances.

My gut feeling is that Wolff has no place to go but Oakland. The world champion San Francisco Giants have strengthened their South Bay “territorial rights” by investing more heavily in their San Jose minor league team and by planning to renovate its home field, Municipal Stadium.

Thing is, it takes a lot more than a gut feeling to get a ballpark built. Throughout all of Newhouse’s vitriolic columns, he has never discussed how an Oakland ballpark will get done. Never mentions that it’ll cost $460 million in construction cost alone. Doesn’t have an answer for dozens of corporate interests that will be needed to get it financed. Let’s not forget that the Giants caught hell for financing $170 million, and that was after naming rights and charter seat licenses cut the original cost roughly in half. How can it get done in Oakland, a place that has relatively few major corporations? A place where PSL’s are impossible to sell? A place where building at the Coliseum (and perhaps anywhere in Oakland) may require shouldering the remaining debt on Mount Davis? A place where the government wants to keep the Raiders and simply may not have the resources to keep both the Raiders and A’s in town?

Frankly, Dave, you’re doing Trib readers a major disservice by not being honest about these challenges. Hope and emotion don’t make a strategy or a business plan. There are hard numbers and realities to address. When you feel like having an adult conversation with your readers about keeping the A’s in Oakland, you’ll be helping a lot more than you’re doing now. Until then, you’re just filling column inches, throwing some red meat at people who want it, and wasting everyone else’s time.

10.15.10
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Purdy interview on KNBR

Merc columnist and all-around San Jose booster Mark Purdy was on the Fitz and Brooks show today (podcast MP3). After a few minutes of figuring out where the Niners’ season went wrong, Bob Fitzgerald asked Purdy about the ballpark situation. At no point was there a mention of yesterday’s news about the Redevelopment Agency’s funding shortage. What Purdy revealed was no less interesting, and I can provide a small amount of additional back story.

Asked about the state of the MLB panel’s report, Purdy said this:

What I know is that Lew Wolff did have a meeting a couple, three weeks ago. (He) came out of that meeting feeling optimistic that the report was gonna be issued soon, and optimistic that it was gonna come down in favor of the A’s at least being able to explore the ballpark in San Jose. I know that.

I also know that another source close to that… they are proceeding down only one track at the moment… they’re proceeding down the San Jose track… at the moment. That’s what I know.

As I understand it, Wolff met with Selig twice in September, once in LA during an A’s road trip and again in Milwaukee, Selig’s home turf. Some time after that, I started hearing that South Bay advocates were feeling pretty good about things. I didn’t get any info then about what they were feeling good about. Apparently Purdy did get it.

If true, there are some major takeaways, which combined with some info we know about the Giants, makes the picture much, much clearer.

  • Oakland is not under consideration at this stage, only San Jose is. Note that Purdy did not say that Oakland was completely eliminated, only that it isn’t in the running “at the moment.” If San Jose fails, Oakland becomes a factor again. But only if San Jose fails.
  • Something will happen at the owners meetings. Sure, but which owners meetings? The first set is November 17-18 in Orlando. The next set will be December 6-9 at Lake Buena Vista, which is just outside Orlando. As much as the A’s situation continues to linger, the owners will also spend a good deal of time on the lingering fate of the Tampa Bay Rays, who are based only two hours southwest of Orlando.
  • Ruling that the A’s will be able to explore building a ballpark in San Jose. This is the one I’m most curious about, because if it’s true, it represents a sort of softening on MLB’s part. MLB generally won’t allow a city to get a team unless there is a signed deal in place. They even left DC hanging while lawsuits and eminent domain proceedings threatened the prospects of what would eventually become Nationals Park. This news indicates that San Jose will have a chance, but will need to get the rest of its pieces in place (land, referendum). That could give San Jose no more than a 6-9 month window – 6 months if land proceedings go smoothly or 9+ if eminent domain is required. Plus you can never tell what will happen on the legal front (Giants or surrogates).

Purdy spends the rest of the segment theorizing what might be happening behind the scenes. As much as it sucks to be kept in suspense, I’d much rather the panel take this time to work out all of the details, than to have Selig and the owners make a decision and then clean up the mess afterward. Even then, it’s uncertain what the Giants will do, since they are maintaining a “no-negotiation” stance. I guess when it comes to dealing with any Halloween-colored team owned by a lawyer, things tend to get messy.

10.14.10
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SJ Redevelopment low on funds, Wolff ready to step up

Despite assurances from SJRA officials last month that the agency would have enough funds to take care of the remaining land buys for the Diridon site, it now appears that they are running short. However, even if they do Lew Wolff may be ready to buy the rest of the land, or even the entire site if need be.

“There isn’t a redevelopment agency or city or federal or state government that isn’t in some form of disarray at this point,” Wolff said Thursday of the agency’s struggles.

While he and agency officials both said no details of a possible land purchase by Wolff had been discussed, the team owner pledged: “Whatever issues we run into, we will figure out how to get them done. We will not let anything stand in the way of getting the ballpark done.”

This sets up a number of land acquisition/swap possibilities:

  • It’s possible the A’s could buy the land and give it back to the city. That would set up a situation in which the A’s could pay a discounted lease on the land until the City reimbursed the team.
  • They could also try to buy the existing public parcels and the remaining ones, making the entire thing privately held. There would be a snag if the landowners were unwilling to sell, because a private interest can’t exercise eminent domain as a city can. If the A’s managed to pull this off, it would probably be the biggest political winner, since the perception of a handout by the city, such as it were, would vanish. $20+24 million for a guaranteed electoral victory in March? It’s worth a cost-benefit analysis at the very least.
  • The team could also buy the public parcels, giving SJRA enough cash to buy the remaining parcels and fund the Autumn Parkway project. The land could be given or sold to the agency, with the cash transaction part happening sometime in the distance.

As mayor Chuck Reed said, “There are half a dozen different ways to put together a deal.” The ones listed above are just off the top of my head.

Even with the low funds situation, City officials are putting on a brave face.

“We’re committed as a city to move forward with the stadium, because it’s the most promising economic development project we’ve seen in the last decade,” Councilman Sam Liccardo said.

“I don’t expect the redevelopment agency’s fiscal problems will prevent us from finding a creative solution.”

Offering to help a municipality is not a foreign concept to Wolff. He offered to pay for upgrades to Phoenix Muni, only to get a collective shrug from the city. The Quakes also paid for upgrades to Buck Shaw Stadium in order to make it a (not so) temporary MLS facility.