After the A’s unusual 1-0 win over The O.C., I drove out to the Estuary to finish taking pictures of the site. For those that are curious about what the Estuary site is, I’ve compiled the pictures into a PDF presentation with captions and descriptions. For now, I’ve refrained from adding much of the information in my previous Estuary posts, but at some point I’ll put it into a complete site analysis.

I intend to give all of the likely candidate sites this same treatment. The sites I will cover are:

1. Estuary (Oak-to-9th)
2. Oakland Coliseum South (Hegenberger/HomeBase)
3. Oakland Coliseum Parking Lot (B & C lot)
4. Oakland Uptown (Telegraph/San Pablo & 18th/20th St)
5. Oakland Howard Terminal (west of Jack London Square)
6. San Jose Diridon South
7. San Jose Reed & Graham Plant
8. Fremont Warm Springs
9. other sites as they are publicized

Here’s the link for the Estuary presentation. You’ll need Adobe Acrobat or another PDF viewer to open the file.

Pointers or suggestions are appreciated.

KRON-4 profiled the Diridon South site on their 5 p.m. newscast earlier this evening. There is a news story and a video clip on that same page.

Important in the story is the following:

But the head of the redevelopment agency says that’s simply not true because the money to purchase the 14-acre site is coming from the sale of several properties already owned by the city.

“In the last year, we have spent $20 million on neighborhoods, Mavrogenes said. “We have another $34 million this year and another $20 million next year, so this will not affect that at all.”

I’m somewhat skeptical of this, but I suppose it’s possible.

Barry Witt of the Merc writes that on Tuesday, San Jose mayor Ron Gonzales and the City Council held a closed-door session to approve the Redevelopment Agency’s pursuit of the 13.9-acre Diridon South site, which has 10 separate property owners. This has leaders in other San Jose neighborhoods worried that funds used to purchase the properties, valued at $20-40 million, will be diverted from their projects.

Where does this money come from, you ask? SJRA has a large pool of money available to them tax increment funds, loans, and other sources. Most of this is reserved for other projects, but there’s always some unreserved portion remaining. The unreserved portion usually gets allocated as well, but sometimes it’s left to accrue interest.

The kicker is that analysts projected a $25 million operating surplus for SJRA in its five-year plan (2004-05 to 2008-09). A proposal had that surplus go into a Priority Future Projects list, on which such projects could be acted upon in the first two years of a revised budget, but it could just as easily be used for a ballpark site, since SJRA doesn’t require any major discussions or hearings to change how unreserved funds are spent.

The mayor and city council argue that SJRA’s budget will be big enough to handle all consituents’ concerns, but if the price tag on Diridon South escalates to near the $40 million mark, SJRA might have a tough time figuring out where the rest of the money comes from. It’s not expected that any funds would be diverted or extra loans taken out to secure the site, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility.

The other question to ask is “Why doesn’t SJRA send this money back into the general fund to offset the budget shortfall?” A good question that has a very simple answer – they don’t have to.

I didn’t attend the night-after-Opening Night game for the first time in 4 years to attend the BART hearing. I listened to the game on the radio on the way home, but I didn’t get an idea of how sparse the crowd was until I caught the rest of game later on TV. For those that don’t know, here’s the attendance of Tuesday night’s game:

10,106

I realize that it was chilly, and many spent some good money on Opening Night, but that’s still rather pathetic. The Brewers had a similar dropoff from Monday to Tuesday, and they’re in a brand new, albeit lacking, stadium. The argument about attendance is not so much about seasonal attendance, it’s about the wild fluctuations from game to game and the anemic revenue streams derived from the gate. Wednesday will be the first of many BART Double Play Wednesdays with $2 tickets and $1 hot dogs. It’s a certainty that many stayed home Tuesday night to take advantage of Wednesday’s promotion. It’s good to have promotions for families and casual fans, but the A’s are getting peanuts compared to other teams. And as long as large swaths of seats are shown empty on game telecasts, the media will continue to hammer the point.

Why all the fuss about Warm Springs? Well, if you remember the HOK study, Fremont was considered as a potential site. In fact, it came in third behind the Uptown site and the Coliseum site. With the Warm Springs extension slated to come online around 2010, it may become a viable site if an Oakland site can’t be worked out. Below is a picture of the area, with the ballpark site area in green:

The large road running down from left to right is I-880.

The Warm Springs Specific Plan (choose #4 for the Existing Conditions report) involves all manner of different development uses. The land right now is vacant, and is owned by many different parties, including GM, as part of the property is within the NUMMI plant. There is only a brief mention of a ballpark with no details.

A ballpark could be built here if the land was successfullly acquired for the ballpark effort. MLB has said that a Fremont site wouldn’t violate the Giants’ territorial rights because Warm Springs is just north of the Alameda-Santa Clara County border. It’s plenty spacious and there would probably be few homeowner NIMBY issues because there aren’t any homeowners there.

That’s not to say it’s without downsides. History of recent ballpark construction indicates that suburban sites are less successful in spurring development than urban sites. Because of the Bay Area’s never relenting real estate market, it’s not likely that a ballpark would become a white elephant, but it would still be difficult to convince voters of a ballpark’s economic benefits over a bunch of housing or retail on the site, especially if much of it is taken up by parking as is shown in the HOK study. There’s also the issue of traffic leading to the ballpark. If the intention is to get more Santa Clara County fans, the net effect would be 3,000 extra cars clogging up one of the Bay Area’s most congested interchanges just south of the site, I-880 & Hwy 237. Extending BART all the way south to Milpitas and San Jose would help, but getting that built is another story. Lastly, if any money was required of Fremont, it would be difficult to come by, since they’re making some serious cuts including the highly controversial “burglar alarm” police response cut.

I attended the BART public hearing on the Warm Springs extension earlier tonight. The proceedings were mostly civil, except for when David Schonnbrunn of Transdef, who was the only opponent of the plan. Schonnbrunn criticized the plan for being wasteful and not smart-growth oriented. While I agreed with some of his points, I felt that I had to speak up to defend the plan, even though I was only there to observe and had no intention to speak.

My comments had to do with the fact that I live in San Jose and work in Fremont. This makes for a usually stress-free reverse commute, but during afternoons it isn’t always pleasant. I would take public transit regularly to work, but public transit takes as many as 3 different transfers to get from door to door. Add to that some thoroughfares that are not bike-friendly, and it makes for a serious deterrent to going green. One of my quotes, which was played on the KTVU’s 10 PM newscast, went like this (I’m paraphrasing myself):

I work in the Warm Springs area. The place is woefully underserved, and to make things worse, it’s difficult to transfer from Santa Clara County’s VTA to AC Transit (Alameda County). I would say that at least 1/4 of the workforce at my employer comes from Santa Clara County, and many of them would seriously consider using transit if it were easier. If I could take a single bus from downtown San Jose to Warm Springs, I could bike the rest of the way and abandon my car at home everyday. In fact, if the extension were already in place, I would already be doing this. The best part is that I would be encouraged to use BART more, but even if I didn’t, the indirect benefit would be positive because it would motivate AC and VTA to better synchronize their service offerings. (AC runs many hub-based routes from BART stations, whereas VTA runs more point-to-point routes.)

I didn’t stick around to see how much my comments resonated or to get interviewed by KTVU reporter Diane Guerazzi, but they did have enough affect that I caught a few smiles from the BART officials out of the corner of my eye, and there’s the newsclip to boot. Even if BART doesn’t come to San Jose as soon as Ron Gonzales wants it (or even never), the Warm Springs extension will help Valley travelers much just because it’s closer. Having potentially one less transfer to make is a very big deal to public transit users.

My next post will cover the effect the Warm Springs extension could have on a new ballpark. The extension is due for a final decision in June.

The AP article titled A’s President Says Team May Build Own Stadium is a little misleading because the title could be easily misinterpreted. Take a look at the quote from A’s President Michael Crowley:

“We’re going to look at ourselves, take a look at the options, take a look at what can be done. And when we come up with something we feel comfortable with, then we’ll talk to the city at that time.”

There’s nothing about how much the A’s will pay (or conversely, what the city’s share is). It’s a given that regardless of the types funding sources, as long as the requirements are met, the A’s will build it. That’s Wolff’s forte.

Also, a Merc editorial approves of San Jose’s Diridon South site.

Gwen Knapp writes about Wolff in her Opening Day column in the Chronicle. Several good nuggets were inside, including:

1. Wolff met with Signature Properties’ Jim Ghielmetti on Monday. They may have been discussing Signature’s multiple Oakland developments, especially the Estuary plan. (See one of my previous entries for a mock-up.)
2. Wolff stayed at his daughter’s place in Los Gatos over the weekend. The daughter, Kari, has been a longtime A’s fan. She helped put together a season-ticket package she could sell to friends and acquaintances, to get more of a following in the South Bay. 20 packages have been sold, and half were for full-season plans. Depending on whether you’re exclusively an East Bay or South Bay supporter (or neither), you may interpret this differently.

It didn’t appear that Knapp had any direct questions about the ballpark, which must have come as a relief to Wolff.

I was one of the 44,000-plus announced at the McAfee Coliseum last night. Kirk Sarloos’s inability to get left-handed hitters out allowed me to look around and note some of the changes:

1. The improvements made to the Meyer Sound PA system are noticeable. Not that Roy Steele’s voice could ever sound tinny or weak, but the enhancements made him sound clearer and boomier than ever.
2. The GM Friday night campaign should bring out a few new folks, though I am disappointed that they didn’t have a Saturn Sky or Pontiac Solstice roadster up for grabs.
3. More signage. I saw a few more advertisers in more locations. The outfield wall is saturated with ads. The two big signs that hung above the stairs in left and right now have a trivision-type display that features A’s Brand and Verizon Wireless. I also saw a new sign for E-Loan and a couple more new advertisers. It looks like the team has been more aggressive in the offseason looking for stadium sponsors.
4. The centerfield, plaza-level sign showing the names of previous A’s greats is gone. There are two new signs on the plaza facade near the foul poles that show the years of the A’s world championship teams.
5. The historical video montage shown before games has changed. It now has more contemporary music and ends with a vintage 70’s-era Swingin’ A’s graphic.
6. The team has also produced a cheesy-looking “public service announcement” promoting proper fan behavior, also to be shown before every game.

Wolff was on Mornings on 2 Monday morning, interviewed by Ross McGowan. The archived video can be found here.

Here’s a snippet from the interview:

McGowan: Considering that Oakland has no money, is this going to be privately financed?

Wolff: It (public funding) may not be in the traditional way in terms of issuing a bond issue or by guaranteeing seats and things like that, but there will be public participation. Just in the fact of getting entitlements and zoning, so there’s value that cities can add without going broke.

I get the feeling that Wolff is going back to his old redevelopment roots, and the A’s are the anchor of an ambitious development plan. Public financing for a ballpark without bonding or seat licenses? Pardon me for being skeptical, but I’m having a hard time seeing it. Then again, he may have something up his sleeve. That’s why he’s a billionaire and I’m just an observer.

Note: A small clip of the interview was shown during the 10 p.m. KTVU newcast as part of business editor Brian Banmiller’s featured story. Banmiller also interview Councilman Ignacio de la Fuente, who reiterated his stance that Oakland doesn’t have any public money to put up for a ballpark. He must be referring to Wolff’s “traditional” methods as well.