Matt Artz again has the scoop on the Fremont process. Take a look at the comments below the blog blurb, especially the last one by FCN founder Deepak Alur. It appears that post the Warm Springs NOP, work can’t move forward because the A’s haven’t dropped off a check to underwrite the work (which they’ve done on all other occasions). Money talks, right? The in-progress EIR has been rendered useless, and any new work requires the A’s willingness to spend the money and time required to see the new NOP through. I would suggest that if the A’s aren’t going to foot the bill, that’s their message to Fremont to “let me down easy.”

Noticed one other thing while rummaging through some stuff in the attic.

The word “Fremont” is nowhere on the ball.

NUMMI chimed in with their opinion about the Warm Springs Alternative.

From the outset, it is hard to imagine how NUMMI could continue to operate with a ballpark immediately adjacent to it. The traffic congestion from a ballpark would seem a sure barrier to on-time delivery of parts needed for production. But the A’s may have some unique idea of how freeway off ramps/onramps could be added/improved, the stadium could be strategically situated, numerous surface streets could be widened, parking could be configured, etc. to avert that result. If that is the case, we would like to see that plan from the beginning of the planning process. The planned ingress/egress and infrastructure improvements or lack thereof could all have tremendous impact on our operations as well as all of the other businesses and residents nearby.

All in all, that’s about as diplomatic as NUMMI could and should be about it. They’re right to ask, as everyone else is asking, what piece of land the A’s intend to use for the ballpark. Even supporters of the plan want the A’s to do this, if only to cut down on the rumormongering. What could be interesting is whether or not the UAW will say anything. If NUMMI views the ballpark as a threat to the plant, the UAW will probably side with NUMMI in opposition. Now that’s a two front war: NUMMI/UAW literally on one side, angry residents and environmentalists on the other. The residents now think that the cancellation of the 2/24 preso is a stalling tactic done to blunt criticism of the alternative.

Why won’t the A’s specify? Perhaps instead of explaining, I’ll refer you to this wonderful clip from years past (careful, some language NSFW):

Just a couple of notes. Ask questions and I’ll answer them. Comments thread will be moderated to include only Q&A about the image.
Notes:

• Capacity is ~32,400 seats, plus 1,000 standing room
• Two decks with 40 luxury suites tucked beneath upper deck, a la Cisco Field and PNC Park.
• 2,900 field club seats. No other club level
• 40 minisuites above field club
• 4 party or large suites
• 2,000 bleacher seats in left field
• 2,000 family outfield seats in right field
• Field dimensions: 325′ in the corners, 373′ in the power alleys, 408′ to dead center. It could be expanded by 3-5′ outward in each dimension. This was done to show that despite the land’s unusual shape, it could house a field with standard and symmetrical dimensions. Actual footprint of the ballpark is 9 acres.
• Bullpens are beyond the outfield walls in left and right.
• The massive blank area beneath the seating bowl is flexible space which would house on multiple levels: clubhouses, back-of-the house facilities, retail space, and team offices.
• 1,700 parking spaces in a 7-story garage to the west of the ballpark. It would also be dual-use as the facility is adjacent to Diridon Station. The garage would more than double the parking currently available in the lots between the arena and ballpark, parking which would be lost as the blocks are developed in the future.
• The Stephens Meat sign, if left in place, would be in the warning track to the right of the LF 373′ sign.

Fire away.

The state’s 3rd District Court of Appeal ruled that the City of Stockton had no right to use eminent domain to force an old office building and its tenants off land it eventually used to build Banner Island Ballpark (home of A’s high-A affliate Stockton Ports). The city will have to pay for all litigation costs. One interesting nugget: the affected landowner had an agreement prior to the eminent domain action to sell to A.G. Spanos. Yes, that A.G. Spanos.

Landowners in Morgan Hill have shown interest in attracting the A’s, Raiders, or 49ers to their digs. Baseball would be practically impossible as the weekday commute there coupled with ballpark traffic would be crushing. For football it might be a little better, at least as long as all games were played on Sundays. Local pols appear to be realistic about the demands of pro sports teams and the city’s limited resources.

Just received word that the A’s, who had planned to make a presentation on the Warm Springs Alternative at the February 24 Fremont City Council session, will not make the preso after all. No word as to why yet. Stay tuned.

Update: Matthew Artz checked in with both Lew Wolff and Fremont Mayor Bob Wasserman to get explanations. The reasoning largely centers around MLB COO Bob DuPuy, who was scheduled to make the presentation as well as a morning appearance at the Fremont Marriott. Understand that when it comes to stadium talks, DuPuy is only brought in to either seal the deal or rescue it. With the chaos that has enveloped the A’s-to-Fremont effort, DuPuy probably wouldn’t be much help.

Questions to ponder in the near term:

• Is Warm Springs dead?
• Will the A’s go full bore on the now modified Pacific Commons plan?
• When will the A’s next address the council?
  

I’m pretty meh about the Raiders-Oakland talks. They’re talking about renewing the relationship. Great. Ignacio De La Fuente is talking up the potential of the Coliseum redevelopment area. Fantastic. At some point in the next year or so, they’ll need to bust out the details. How’s it going to be financed? What will it look like? Will they preserve Mt. Davis and rebuild the rest of it or start from scratch?

Kudos to Amy Trask for not using her boss’s old tricks. Twenty years ago, any major sports franchise had tons of leverage over cities and counties throughout the nation. These days the tables have been turned. While LA has emerged as a stalking horse, they’ll have to get in line behind the Chargers, who have started their own marketing push throughout the basin.

Let’s say that the two parties are able to come up with a new stadium plan at the existing Coliseum. To finance it, Oakland gives the Raiders development rights to the Coliseum (~60 acres), the Coliseum South area along Hegenberger (20 acres), and additional land between the complex and the BART station (15 acres). That puts the total available land at around 95 acres.

First and foremost, they have to implement a plan to preserve parking. Oracle Arena stages 100 events per year, over 40 them being Warriors games. I’m not aware of a specific parking requirement for the Arena, but most large indoor arenas tend to have at least 4,000 spaces in close proximity to the venue. The W’s will undoubtedly ask for more to be preserved. At the outset, that makes the Coliseum complex’s C and D lots, which flank the Arena, off limits.

As I understand it, the power lines and other utilities that supposedly make it difficult to build in the parking lot run underground beneath the center “mall” area. Preservation of the facility will have to be done. It’s a good idea anyway because the complex was designed with the mall in mind. Landscaping and beautification are natural fits for this area.

That would leave the A and B lots for development, along with the land along San Leandro St. (which is privately owned and would have to be acquired), and Coliseum South, which includes the gravel “Malibu” lot. Conceivably, a large transit-oriented mixed-use development would be appropriate here. It’s not a place for high-rises, but it can accommodate 4-5 story buildings with ground level retail. The difficult thing about this kind of development is that you’ll have additional parking requirements. Residential development has parking requirements. Let’s get rough minimum estimates for parking:

• Residential – 3,000 spaces for 3,000 units
• Retail – 1,000 spaces for 300,000 square feet of floor space
• Stadium – Replacement of 5,000 spaces from A and B lots

Parking replacement for the stadium would have to be done with garages. That means no more tailgating, folks. If the C and D lots don’t have garages built on them, they’d be the only surface lots in the area, which means they’d be the only possible place for tailgating.

The construction cost for all of this would be at least $1 billion depending on the actual stadium cost. Besides the one major problem of how to finance it, there’s another issue to deal with: the Raiders have known track record when it comes to development. Al Davis’s experience with the vertical passing game means bupkis when it comes to building anything. Even he admits that he’s not a stadium builder, and this would be much more than a stadium. Davis, a football man who is not the billionaire type who views his team as a toy, has far less resources at his disposal than other incredibly rich owners like Jerry Jones, Paul Allen, Daniel Snyder, or Robert Kraft.

Do you think the Raiders and Oakland could pull something like this off? If they don’t, what happens next? It seems likely that the two will limp along with a short-term extension at the Coliseum until the next move is determined. Beyond that, unless someone drops off a bag containing a billion dollars at either party’s doorstep, it’s hard to see how something this ambitious gets done.

I lost count of how many times that phrase was used at the Miami commissioners session today. By the way, the vote to approve the Marlins ballpark project stalled at 2-2 while commissioner Marc Sarnoff backed off, saying that he needed changes to be made to the plan.

The scene looked like a small scale version of a recent House stimulus debate. Everyone played politics, a few insults were thrown around. Where do the Marlins go from here? Supporting Commission Chairman Joe Sanchez thinks it’s dead if the concessions requested by Sarnoff are made.

They are now in a second recess while they consider… something.

Update: The meeting will adjourn continue again on March 12. Plenty of time for David Samson to sweat.

Last week I did a quick e-mail exchange with the Examiner’s Scott Sabatini, who has been following the A’s stadium saga for the paper. The exchange has just been published (yes, my full name is in there), with a nod to yesterday’s speculative post in there.

Sabatini has been picking up the pace of the A’s beat since the beginning of the year. Impressively, he’s covered the business beat in equal proportion to the on-field A’s. Normally, a paper will have separate reporters to cover the team and the stadium stuff (a city business affair).

Side note: I’m watching the Marlins-Miami commission meeting right now. The city’s commissioners will vote today to approve the ballpark. This vote is considered the last major hurdle for the Marlins.

The thing about liveblogging an event is that when the writer looks back at what he wrote, horror is often plainly etched on his face. It’s great for an Apple keynote address by Steve Jobs, not so great for something that requires greater analysis. For those who read the whole thing, bless your heart. For those who gave up partway down the post, here’s an attempt to make amends.

To start off, the A’s have officially made Warm Springs their preferred site, relegating Pacific Commons to retail/housing-only status. That will only galvanize opposition from the Warm Springs and Weibel neighborhoods, who intend to show up at the February 24 city council session pitchforks and torches polite signs in hand. A while back, I mentioned that while attending another council session over a year ago, I watched the council approve a controversial shopping center over the numerous objections of the very same Weibel neighborhood denizens. It was heated then, it will only become moreso in two weeks. Hopefully, the mayor and council have cleared the agenda for the comments session to follow. [Note: Notice of Preparation for Warm Springs here.]

Of course, the council session isn’t just a Festivus-like airing of grievances. There’s actual business to discuss, chiefly the council’s upcoming decision to accept Warm Springs as the official site. Should the council move forward with WS, they’ll authorize some amount of money to be spent to fully study the site and amend the EIR in the process. The A’s, in a manner consistent with prior history, would likely underwrite the work.

Then again, maybe that won’t happen. In yesterday’s session, Lew Wolff had a couple of interesting quotes. One of them came early on in his rant about process:

We think issues should be fully aired, but not forever. A “No” answer is as good as a “Yes” answer for those of us who want to move forward.

He later went on to describe a similar situation in San Jose, when he tried to build a small hotel on a vacant lot he owned downtown. Since that particular project failed, he hadn’t done any significant work in San Jose. Incidentally, the city changed mayors during that period from one he had a frosty relationship with (Ron Gonzales) to one who’s practically a chum (Chuck Reed). Wolff also assumed ownership of the A’s around that time as well.

Going back to the quote – it’s a real eyecatcher. Is Lew hinting at Fremont giving up the ghost? Or does he want to keep slogging through along with the city? Do the mayor and council want to continue with this? One has to wonder what the limits of their political will are.

If Fremont approves the plan despite intense political pressure, another 3-6 months will be required to complete the EIR. The traffic study and management plan, which still haven’t been released for the old Pacific Commons project, will continue to raise considerable ire due to its absence. The opposition, who had been the proverbial “sleeping dogs,” will only get angrier, more organized, and most importantly, bigger. Fringe voices who have called for recalls and lawsuits will grow in number.

If Lew’s nudging Fremont to say no, the city can exit this situation while saving face in the process. They can look like “heroes” by putting a stop to the “big bad developer.” The council members who are looking to run for mayor next time (Wasserman’s termed out) won’t be overly tainted by the experience. Lew, in turn, can officially turn his attentions elsewhere.

I need to make an important distinction about this. I don’t expect Lew to back out on his own. The San Jose issue I cited earlier showed Lew’s frustration with bureaucracy. In this case, the city’s not the problem. Instead, he saved his arrows for non-governmental parties. Wolff/Fisher still have $45 million of real estate at Pacific Commons and the option to buy $100 million more, so it’s not like the developer wants to alienate the city. Something else might get built there in the future when the economy recovers. Friends in Fremont’s high places will still be needed.

What we have, then, is like a romance in which outside circumstances can cause a breakup. Maybe the woman needs to take care of sick parents. Perhaps the man has found a new job far away. They’re not married yet so they don’t have to make the really tough decisions together. Instead, they can make the easiest decision to move on separately and become friends. Without benefits.

The A’s have managed to extricate themselves from the messy scheduling predicament that is Comcast SportsNet Bay Area with their move to Comcast SportsNet California.

145 games will be included on the expanded CSNCA schedule, with 75 in HD. It’s not yet known on what channel the HD broadcasts will be aired, but there is an empty Comcast 721 slot which can serve as CSNCA’s HD feed. On satellite services, the distinction between SD and HD feeds is not so clear-cut, so we’ll have to see how that shakes out.

On Comcast-serviced cities in the Bay Area, CSNCA will be on channel 89 starting March 11. This may coincide with other channel transitions, many of them related to Comcast’s analog-to-digital switch.

The team will share the channel with the Kings, which should work well since there is little overlap between the NBA and MLB seasons. In cases of overlap, the CSN+ channel will still be available for occasional use. For the three games to be broadcast on CSN+ in 2009, this will only be the case in the Sacramento area. Bay Area viewers will see the game on the main CSNCA channel.

CSNCA and CSNBA will revamp their local programming offerings, including:

Among the new additions coming in April are SportsNet Central, a daily locally-focused sports show that will cover hometown teams, breaking local and national stories and updated scores. A separate show, Chronicle Live, will be produced in conjunction with the San Francisco newspaper’s sports department. The show will be an hour-long daily sports talk show.

Few things are more appealing than Ray Ratto’s mug on my TV screen. I also wonder if this means the end for the simulcast of Gary Radnich’s KNBR show (I’m sure in the minority on this – I love Radnich all the way back to the BayTV days).