08.03.14
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Soft open becomes hard lesson for many fans at 1st Levi’s Stadium event

I didn’t attend tonight’s Sounders-Earthquakes game at Levi’s Stadium, so I can’t comment on any aspects of the experience there. I won’t get into the architecture either, even though I have seen the stadium in every stage of construction multiple times per week over the last two years. I’ll reserve those thoughts for after August 29, the date of the Friday Night Lights high school football event. That event will not only be the cheapest to get into at the stadium ($20 general admission, less than a tour ticket), it will feature a doubleheader, meaning fans can roam around the venue for six hours if they wanted to. That’s exactly what I’m going to do. Anyway, I’ll let this tweet sum up the experience inside for now:

The big mystery leading up to the game was whether or not the venue and the City of Santa Clara could handle the influx of fans. Tonight’s game was positioned as a sort of soft open, with a crowd no larger than 50,000 expected. The upper deck was closed off to cap the capacity. If the open house for season ticket holders was a dry run, Saturday night was to be the first real test. Despite advisories to come more than 2 hours early, many fans faced gridlock on the surface streets leading to the stadium. Fans who arrived in the area 60-90 minutes before the match start were often turned away as their designated parking lots filled up. As part of the TPMP (Transporation and Parking Management Plan), the lots were roughly divided into quadrants based on which direction/highway you were coming from. Arriving from the east on 237/880? The red lots are for you. From the south/southeast on 101/87? Try the green or purple lots. As Tasman Drive and Great America Parkway backed up, those going to the more remote lots eventually had an easier time getting and out. Sure, that meant an extra 15-20 minute walk, but it was probably worth it. It sure beat some fans being stuck for an hour in the parking garage across the street from the stadium. Parking inventory isn’t going to improve over the next couple of weeks, so it will be absolutely paramount for the team/City to more efficiently route fans along those surface streets. Even so, it highlights a problem with the street grid in north Santa Clara – there are no side streets. Everything’s set up in a superblock fashion, and the commercial “neighborhoods” within have no outlets besides the heavily impacted major intersections that service them. I’m sure that the TPMP will be revised to improve this performance, but there’s no fixing the street layout. That said, Great America Parkway has four lanes north and south. It should be capable of getting cars in and out of the stadium vicinity. My advice?

For some people, getting out was worse than getting in. For others it was the exact opposite. The above tweet is half-joking, but parking closer to either 101 or 237 can’t be a bad idea if you want to get in and out quickly.

Transit was another story. Caltrain and VTA have been pitching the idea of transferring people coming from SF/Peninsula at the Mountain View station, then trekking the 25 minutes on light rail to Levi’s Stadium. The circuitous route (with a small section of single track) is far from efficient. VTA wants to boost light rail ridership, so this seems like a good way to do it. It’s not the fastest way to get fans to the stadium. If they want to get fans to the stadium fast, they’d have fans disembark at the Lawrence station 3.5 miles southwest of the stadium. From there express buses would be lined up to take fans 15 minutes the rest of the way. Riders arriving via the main spine of the light rail system (from Downtown, East & South San Jose, plus Campbell/Los Gatos) had to deal with overstuffed trains and mechanical breakdowns. One train shut down at the River Oaks station and its air conditioning system went out, motivating many riders to pop out emergency windows to get fresh air.

LevisStadiumBusService

VTA’s route map showing light rail and bus service

VTA is working on an additional track siding to store more trains, which should improve capacity. That’s still not enough. A 3-car trainset holds around 500 people including standees. That should improve service frequency from the every 10 minutes service VTA was advertising but not delivering. However the problem is infrastructure. There needs to be an alternative in place to better facilitate all of the fans overflowing at the Great America Station platform. Some fans told me that they walked to other LRT stations to avoid the crowds. The agency should follow a practice it already follows when there are breakdowns or other high-impact delays: employ bus bridges. By providing an overflow option for light rail riders, VTA can ensure that more fans can make the regular or special northbound Caltrain trains. Set up bus bridges to Mountain View, Great Mall, Alum Rock, Tamien, Winchester, and Ohlone-Chynoweth. That should relieve pressure on the light rail system and allow fans going to Downtown San Jose to utilize freed up trains. Otherwise you get stories like the one from Merc sports editor Bud Geracie, who lined up for light rail once the game ended before 10 and didn’t arrive at the Tamien station until nearly midnight.

My advice to fans? If VTA doesn’t introduce redundancy, take Caltrain to Lawrence (from SF/Peninsula or San Jose) and Uber/Lyft/Sidecar/Taxi the rest of the way. Fair should be around $20 or less each way, quite reasonable if you’re in a group.

Coincidentally, there was one aspect of VTA that was working well: the express buses. The five routes, which served Cupertino, Eastridge, Gilroy, Los Gatos, and the Fremont BART station, got in and out swiftly. Fans on those buses didn’t face the overcrowding experienced on light rail. They got to the BART station as early as 10:30. Another alternative I heard a lot about was bicycle. Whether biking straight to the stadium (if based nearby) or transferring from Caltrain, the trip proved fast and trouble-free. Bike racks at the stadium were packed, indicating that some fans had been planning those routes for weeks if not months.

Capitol Corridor was running on a normal weekend schedule. Fans who rode Capitol Corridor had to leave the game early to catch a 9:30 northbound (eastbound) train, the last one of the night. For 1 PM Sunday 49er games, the schedule has been changed slightly to better accommodate fans leaving Levi’s around 4:30-5. ACE, which doesn’t normally run on weekends, will have a special train running in each direction on Sundays.

The first 49ers preseason game is scheduled two Sundays from now. That game is expected to be a sellout plus standing room. Santa Clara and the Niners have a lot of work to do to reduce the frustration and confusion experienced with this first event. I’m pulling for them, but it’s gonna be tough.

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P.S. – Quick restaurant recommendation fairly close to the stadium: Gobi Mongolian BBQ at Lawrence Expwy & Tasman Drive about 1.5 miles west of the stadium. Huge weekday lunchtime crowds, fairly small weekend crowds.

08.02.14
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Wolff gave $1000 to one-time Kaplan campaign fund

BANG is reporting that in May A’s owner Lew Wolff gave $1,000 to Oakland City Council member and mayoral candidate Rebecca Kaplan. You may recall that after lease extension talks died earlier in the spring, Kaplan, who is also a JPA Board Commissioner, spearheaded the effort to revive the talks. Kaplan later caught a lot of heat from some of her colleagues on the Council, Mayor Quan, and numerous Raiders fans, all for different reasons. That caused Kaplan to actually vote against the extension she helped craft during a JPA session, though it passed anyway. When the lease got to the City Council, Kaplan became a Yes vote. The lease prevailed 5-2, then went to the Alameda County Board of Supervisors, where it passed unanimously.

The campaign fund Kaplan ran was called “Safe Streets Local Jobs.” It was set up to support a 1/2-cent sales tax increase that would fund up to $8 billion in infrastructure improvements all over Alameda County. A similar measure in 2012, also sponsored by Kaplan, fell to defeat by the narrowest of margins. Because Kaplan entered the mayoral race, there was concern that money from the initiative campaign would go to her mayoral campaign, so the funds were distributed and SSLJ was shut down. Was it a quid pro quo moment, or something Kaplan saw as a way to differentiate herself from the rest of her rivals?

Undoubtedly, Kaplan will use the lease extension as a feather in her campaign cap. The deal keeps the A’s in Oakland through at least 2018 and commits them to talk to Oakland about a new ballpark at the Coliseum complex. Kaplan still believes that the A’s and Raiders can be accommodated via the Coliseum City project, though Wolff wants nothing to do with it. The worst-kept secret of all this is that there have been discussions about a scenario in which the Raiders leave and the A’s are the only team remaining in Oakland (once the Warriors leave for their SF arena). The November election will arrive too early for Raiders owner Mark Davis to declare that he’s leaving Oakland, but if the Raiders are to have their own Coliseum extension he and the NFL can drive their own hard bargain the same way Wolff and MLB did.

It’s unknown what if any blowback Kaplan will face from Raiders fans threatened by the new agreement. Fans highly opposed to the lease showed up en masse at early public meetings over the extension, but receded somewhat over time. The hubbub over whether the lease was fiscally responsible and a giveaway to the A’s largely collapsed as JPA negotiator Jon Streeter explained the net positive impact for the City and County when the lease is compared to previous A’s and Raiders leases. The next big question has to be whether the ongoing stadium operating subsidy for the Raiders of $7 million will be an issue for the JPA/City/County. If they’re going to be consistent, the subsidy should be an important point of debate.

07.31.14
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A Puncher’s Chance At Best

In light of the blockbuster trade, I wrote this last year after the A’s were eliminated from the postseason.

Marine Layer's avatarnewballpark.org

Sisyphus, by Titian (mid-16th century)

Two weeks from today will mark the 10th anniversary of the last team to win a World Series with a payroll under $70 million. The winner in 2003 was the Florida Marlins, a team chock full of prodigious young talent (Miguel Cabrera, Josh Beckett, Dontrelle Willis) and wily veterans (Pudge Rodriguez, Jeff Conine, Mike Lowell) who shocked the world when they beat the Yankees in six games. In 2003 the Yankees’ payroll was nearly $153 million. The Marlins’ payroll was a shade over $45 million. This year the team the wins it all will have a payroll anywhere from double to more than triple that of the teams that were just eliminated.

Atlanta was the first to go, seemingly powerless against the Dodgers’ Puig-powered juggernaut. Next was Tampa Bay, who fought bravely before succumbing to a superior Red Sox squad. Wednesday night it was the…

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07.30.14
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Mark Davis meets with San Antonio officials

In case the Mark Davis feels like moving the Raiders to San Antonio, there’s already branding in place. The NFL even owns it.

Card of future Cowboy backup QB and head coach Jason Garrett, whose career ended up far more successful than the WLAF

Card of future Cowboy backup QB and head coach Jason Garrett, whose career ended up far more successful than the late, not-so-lamented WLAF

The World League of American Football launched in the early 90’s, a half-hearted attempt to grow American football in Europe and shore up former USFL markets. Operating the league became a drain, and after shrinking to become a entirely European affair (NFL Europe), the league shut down after the 2007 season. Yet there are still reminders of the San Antonio RIDERS, only one letter removed from RAIDERS. The color scheme is 80’s-90’s awful, so it would be best if the Raiders stuck with the historical scheme, similar to the NBA Spurs.

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Around the time Alameda County was approving the A’s lease, a report came out of the San Antonio Express News indicating that Mark Davis met with officials in SA over the weekend. Reached for comment, Davis said the following:

“Former San Antonio mayor Henry Cisneros is a friend and Henry suggested I take the opportunity to meet with some city officials while I was in town. I have nothing further to discuss on the topic.”

After his mayoral stint, Cisneros went to become HUD Secretary during the Clinton administration, then was taken down by a mistress scandal. Davis also met with current mayor Julian Castro, City Manager Sheryl Sculley, San Antonio Spurs owner Peter Holt, former Minnesota Vikings owner Red McCombs, and representatives from the San Antonio Chamber of Commerce. Together they toured the Alamodome and talked about San Antonio as a market.

The Houston Chronicle noted that Cisneros’s son-in-law is Brad Badger, a former Raiders and Stanford offensive lineman who now works in team’s corporate sales department. Sculley made her own statement:

“I was asked to meet two weeks ago with the owner of the Oakland Raiders, Mark Davis, and members of his staff. Mr. Davis has expressed interest in a possible relocation of his NFL team to San Antonio and we are engaged in preliminary due diligience. The agenda for this visit included a tour of the Alamodome and meetings with local business leaders.”

If Davis is going to use whatever leverage he has, the effort will have to involve making visits to San Antonio, Portland, and inevitably, Los Angeles. Heck, Minnesota leaders flinched big time just from a sighting of Vikings owner Zygi Wilf’s plane in LA. It doesn’t matter much that San Antonio is a small market. Football’s largely forgiving of that provided that there are enough regional corporate interests (Hello, Austin!) to bring in. San Antonio’s biggest problems are that the market is already a Cowboys stronghold (and Texans to a lesser extent), since the Cowboys have conducted training camp at the Alamodome on multiple occasions. Cowboys owner Jerry Jones signaled the difficulty Davis and San Antonio might face:

I wonder what Jerruh and Mark will talk about during the joint practice sessions set for August 12-13 in Oxnard?

Beyond the pre-existing teams, San Antonio faces the same problem all other prospective Raiders host cities faces: they need a new stadium. The NFL has set the whole thing up so that a team really couldn’t move permanently unless a stadium deal is in place, since the NFL provides a large amount of financing. And that piece doesn’t come until the public/team portions are committed.

I’m more curious about the reactions from Oakland, Alameda County, and Raiders fans are than anything else regarding this trip. This is how the stadium game is played, nothing more.

07.29.14
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Alameda County approves A’s lease unanimously 5-0

After a relatively brief, much less heated discussion over the A’s lease extension than was had by the City two weeks ago, Alameda County’s Board of Supervisors voted 5-0 to approve the extension. The deal keeps the A’s in the Coliseum until at least 2018, and up to 2024 if the team chooses to stay there. Though the deal is characterized as a 10-year lease, the 2014 season runs concurrent with the new deal.

Supervisor Keith Carson asked the most pointed questions of JPA negotiator Jon Streeter, mostly about the debt and the characterization of the new lease as a better deal for the County (and City) than previous leases. Streeter noted that the more money comes in upfront, plus the A’s have to pay off the lease even if they leave the Coliseum early. Miley noted that the original A’s escape provision calls for no payoff if the team pursued a new ballpark elsewhere in Alameda County. The language was changed to Oakland only, meaning the A’s would pay full termination even if they made a stadium deal in Fremont or even San Leandro. Streeter also repeated the notion that the upcoming scoreboard project, which the A’s are paying for, means that the JPA no longer has a potentially big liability item to worry about, since the JPA has been to date responsible for the outdated, frequently failing scoreboard.

To recap the major deal points:

  • A’s stay until at least 2018, up to 2024. A’s must give at least 2 calendar years’ notice if they plan to leave early.
  • The JPA must also give the A’s 2 years’ notice if a Raiders stadium deal comes to fruition and forces the A’s to vacate.
  • Lease payments are $1.75 for this year, $1.5 MM in 2015, $1.5 MM in 2016-19, and $1.25 from 2020-24.
  • A’s will spend at least $10 million on new scoreboard system. A’s retain all revenue from A’s games, Raiders/JPA can split non-A’s game revenue as they see fit.
  • JPA sets aside $1 million per year (increasing 5% annually) to establish a stadium maintenance fund (presumably for fixing plumbing, leaks, etc.)
  • JPA will pay $200,000/year for the O.co signage caps above the scoreboards. A’s may end up replacing those caps as part of the scoreboard project.
  • A’s and JPA will continue stadium discussions on land at or adjacent to the Coliseum (nowhere else like Howard Terminal).
  • The parking arbitration matter is resolved, all claims dismissed.

The JPA and County clarified that there is $191.4 million in outstanding debt at the Coliseum complex: $106.5 million for the stadium, $84.9 for the Arena. Bonds will be retired in 2025 and 2026, respectively.

Next up is MLB’s expected approval of the lease, and the City of Oakland’s next steps in negotiating with the Raiders and BayIG over Coliseum City.

07.27.14
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Lucas Oil Stadium

As I was finishing my Midwest trip, I had to make 4+ hour drive from Cincinnati to Chicago, where I had to return my rental car and fly out of Midway. Thankfully I had a couple places to visit along the way, the great brewers 3 Floyds just outside of Chicago and Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. Having been to Cowboys Stadium and University of Phoenix Stadium, I was eager to compare the retractable dome peers.

Lucas Oil Stadium opened in 2008, in between UoP (2006) and Cowboys/AT&T (2009). Unlike the other two, Lucas Oil Stadium was meant to be in a downtown environment, adjacent to a pre-existing convention center. The stadium replaced the old RCA Dome, the built-on-spec fixed roof stadium that lured the Colts and owner Bob Irsay one cold morning in March, 1984.

I had never been to the RCA (Hoosier) Dome, so I can’t speak to its quality as a football venue. From what I could tell, it was much like the Pontiac Silverdome, with a two-deck, football-first layout and air-supported roof. Being in Indianapolis, the RCA Dome and its successor became favored venues for the NCAA basketball tournament, since the NCAA’s headquarters are in Indy and the area is well-suited to handling large events. Indy is also home of the DCI Championships, the national drum corps (marching band) competition.

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Like many stadium tours, this one started and ended in the team store. A flight of stairs took us from the street level to the lower concourse level. The lower concourse is split, 3/4ths of it set up in the middle of the lower deck to accommodates suites, while the north end concourse is open at the top of the lower bowl. Throughout the lower concourse are massive sponsor areas for Lucas Oil, Meijer, Stanley, and others. Huge windows illuminate much of the concourse, but the mall-like feel can’t be avoided. It’s better than the awful compromised sterility of MetLife, though that bar isn’t exactly high.

While it has a fairly compact layout, the seating bowl has few cantilevering opportunities. There are columns along the club level corners, creating some obstructed views. The one interesting feature is the press box, which is suspended from the roof above the western upper deck. The view is high up as one would suspect. At the entire press box is along the sideline, not set in the corners as is often the case with new NFL stadia.

HKS designed Lucas Oil Stadium to evoke an old field house, a nod to the team sport the state loves most of all, basketball. Bankers Life Fieldhouse nearby has the same vibe. Neither truly pulls off the homage. BLF already looks rather bloated, so you knew that getting LOS to look right at scale would be a difficult challenge. To minimize the visual impact, HKS placed the footprint slightly off the street grid and turned the stadium so that the north windows face the center of downtown Indy. The effect works when you’re close to the edifice since the façade is broken up into components, but once you see the whole thing with its peaked roof from afar, it’s ruined. There’s simply no avoiding the fact that this is a huge stadium, though at some angles it looks smaller than its peers in Arizona and Texas.

Unlike UoP and AT&T, the roof is designed to open laterally with the field (to the sidelines), not to the ends. Part of the reasoning is that much of the load-bearing structure is built along the sidelines, as opposed to the other two stadia where huge trussed arches carry much of the roof’s weight. HKS did a nice job of not over-emphasizing much of the structural work, which is the opposite of the firm’s muscle-flexing exhibition in Arlington. Again, this helps to reduce the visual scale of the building and largely works. In that sense Lucas Oil Stadium looks and feels more like a really large basketball arena than an enormous football stadium. That says a lot for an industry that has never considered intimacy much of a factor in its fan experience.

One obvious feature not at Lucas Oil Stadium is a museum, or some other nod to team history. There’s a Ring of Honor along the upper deck rim, sure. Despite the team’s general lack of success during the 30 years from roughly 1970 to 2000, there is a rich history that should be better acknowledged. Exhibits along the concourse or on the outside of the stadium would be helpful, yet are inexplicably missing. At some point Peyton Manning will have a statue outside. It would be better if Manning’s tribute was located near plaques for Johnny Unitas, Eric Dickerson, and Marvin Harrison.

Having opened towards the end of the NFL stadium boom, Lucas Oil Stadium is a perfectly good representation of the era and of Indianapolis. It has all the amenities you’d expect and has undergone numerous changes to react to the market. It is also, sadly, the product of a major subsidy from Indianapolis – as is the basketball arena. Indianapolis will always struggle with its big city-small town desires. While Indy will never be a proper big city like Chicago, at least it can be a good host. Indy knows that game inside and out.

07.22.14
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A’s approve City-revised lease, await County vote

No drama this week. The A’s approved the last-minute changes the City of Oakland made to the lease agreement. When Alameda County approves next week, everyone should be square. The A’s put out a press release, in short:

The Oakland A’s have come to an agreement with the JPA on all outstanding points regarding a new 10-year lease at the Coliseum. The Alameda County Board of Supervisors, are scheduled to vote on the lease July 29.

We appreciate the cooperation and efforts of Oakland city officials in this process and are optimistic that our negotiations have led to a fair and mutually-beneficial relationship. Most of all, we are happy for our great fans who, pending the county’s vote, will know that the Oakland Athletics will continue to play its games at O.co Coliseum.

More coverage is available from SFGate and BANG.

With the lease issue very close to resolution, the NFL is once again talking about a football team in LA – at perhaps a league-owned stadium, no less. Curious timing to say the least.

Still, there will be those who keep saying to never trust Lew Wolff, don’t give in, etc. I’ll just leave this snippet from another East Bay legend here:

If I speak at one constant volume
At one constant pitch
At one constant rhythm
Right into your ear
You still won’t hear

07.18.14
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Wake up, Oakland

“Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without.” – Confucius

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There are any number of ways to rephrase the idiom above. Some might use “A bird in hand is worth two in the bush,” though the meaning is not the same. Voltaire coined the phrase a little more directly.

The perfect is the enemy of the good.

As I listened to Don Knauss make yet another sales pitch about the virtues of Howard Terminal (and Damon Bruce’s softball handling of it), I started to write a point-by-point rebuttal of everything he said. Then, thanks to BANG’s Matthew Artz, I read a 6-page letter from Lew Wolff to Oakland Interim City Administrator Henry Gardner. The letter outlined Wolff’s desire for a lease extension at the Coliseum before leading into the questions surrounding the future of the Coliseum.

Two pages of the letter are devoted to a section called “The Raiders”. Instead of pointing fingers at the Raiders or Mark Davis, Wolff mostly pans BayIG, the Coliseum City plan, and all of the work that has gone into it so far.

I contrasted words from both Knauss and Wolff. The Clorox CEO talked about a transformative project that could hugely benefit downtown Oakland, which it could. A similar description has been made about Coliseum City by its proponents, comparing it to LA Live among other developments. Then there was Wolff, going detail by detail about the process, the difficulty, tedium, and the obstacles. He even lashed back at “Negative Forces” agitating at every possible turn, which could be construed as a critique of Don Knauss or others allied with Knauss.

The argument, which has stretched as long as Wolff and John Fisher have owned the A’s, comes down to Voltaire’s quote. Wolff’s #1 job this entire time has been to get a ballpark. Let’s understand some of those efforts.

  • 2003 – Wolff was hired by Steve Schott and Ken Hofmann to be the VP of Venue Development. During that brief tenure, Wolff proposed building in the Coliseum’s A Lot and at the Malibu/HomeBase lots. The A Lot option went nowhere because Schott was only willing to put up $100 million for the ballpark. The Malibu option was not available because it was not JPA-owned land. Eventually the JPA bought the land in order to assemble a larger complex for what would be become Coliseum City.
  • 2005 – Wolff exercises an option to buy the team, phasing Schott & Hofmann out and bringing Fisher and numerous associates of Wolff in. Wolff soon proposes the Coliseum North (66th/High) plan, which would redevelop a large swath of industrial land north of the Coliseum complex into a ballpark and mixed-use (residential, retail, commercial) plan. The plan received great fanfare at first, but quickly died as numerous existing landowners showed no interest in selling.
  • 2006 – The Fremont Baseball Village plan is proposed in south Fremont near the Santa Clara County line. A compromise plan of sorts, the idea was to court Silicon Valley corporate interests without crossing into the Giants-held territory of Santa Clara County. Again, there is great immediate enthusiasm, this time from Fremont city leaders. This time, a combination of the Great Recession and big box stores vetoing any developments they didn’t approve of killed the plan. Another attempt in 2010 was made to put the ballpark near the NUMMI (now Tesla) factory across the Nimitz. That was met with hostility from well-heeled residents on the other side of I-680 and fell apart quickly.
  • 2009 – San Jose becomes the next plan, with a partially-acquired site downtown, major corporate and civic support, and a certified environmental impact report ready to go. Again the plan stalled as the Giants remained intransigent about their held territory. A lawsuit filed by people associated with the San Jose Giants (eventually a SF Giants-owned property) threatened the project and is still ongoing. The City of San Jose became frustrated and launched its own lawsuit in 2012 against MLB. That too is ongoing.
  • 2009 – Let’s Go Oakland launches with support of three sites in downtown Oakland: Victory Court, JLS West, and Howard Terminal. Victory Court becomes the preferred site in 2010. LGO promoted Victory Court as much as possible, backed by local developers. No significant activity occurs in 2011, and by the beginning of 2012 the site is dead due to the death of redevelopment and spiraling site acquisition costs.
  • 2012 – Not long after Victory Court goes away, murmurs about Howard Terminal becoming the new preferred (not by A’s ownership) Oakland site begin. In 2013, the Port of Oakland negotiates a settlement with SSA Terminals to vacate the site in order to consolidate facilities and kill a lawsuit against the Port. That allows the Port to look into non-maritime uses such as a ballpark, which it does in spring 2014. A new investor/support group, OWB (Oakland Waterfront Ballpark), emerges, led by Knauss and former Dreyer’s CEO T. Gary Rogers.
    While Wolff has been trying to deal with the on-the-ground demands of planning and building a ballpark, many in Oakland have been fixated on grand concepts like Coliseum City and the far-off promises of Howard Terminal and Victory Court. Even yesterday, Knauss couldn’t help but bring San Francisco into the discussion, talking up how a HT ballpark would have better weather and views than AT&T Park. Coliseum City would be a transformative project that could attract Super Bowls and give Oakland new cachet.

Oakland’s desires to become something bigger and better are completely understandable. But they’ve been so pie-in-the-sky, so big, that there’s always been huge doubts about what, if anything, the City could pull off. I’ve mentioned before that Oakland has never built anything by itself, and that it needed the County and the business community to come together to make the Coliseum work nearly 50 years ago. That need hasn’t changed, but the sense of teamwork has. In Oakland’s attempt to keep all three teams in place, it has gotten away from what got them the teams in the first place: strong partnerships and sensitivity to the teams’ needs. Nowhere is that more evident than in Coliseum City, where the County is playing the realist role in questioning the project and in looking to the A’s, while the City brings in big names with no commitments, entirely footing the bill along the way.

Oakland keeps searching for the perfect project, the ultimate solution, the one that will finally vault them past the City beyond its rival across the Bay. Some politician(s) would take credit when it gets done, a legacy-defining moment. So they keep dreaming, keep hoping, clearly not worried about the little details that need to be addressed or the problems that arise when undertaking big projects. At some point, someone in Oakland will recognize that the dreams need to be tempered with what can realistically be done, and understand the work that will be required to get it done – establishing partnerships with the teams and stakeholders for starters. If not, the teams will get frustrated and give up. Those dreams will die. The biggest pro sports Oakland will be able to get will be minor league (which for some is okay). And the Coliseum, home of six world championships, will end up unused, even more unloved, and ultimately, something generic like a shopping center. That’s what happens when the well-intended keep pursuing the ever-elusive perfect instead of understanding that good is actually pretty great.

Lew Wolff is getting ready to offer what could be a pretty good deal. If Oakland wakes up, they may be able to react in time to take it.

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P.S. – I’m removing comments from the site for the time being. It’s not because of the commenters or specific comments – although they can be especially inane at times – it’s because those comments and the constantly attacking spambots (which you don’t see) are causing heavy server load, for which I’ve been warned by my provider. I hope that by having no comments there will be less server load. Thanks for your patience.

07.16.14
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Oakland City Council approves amended lease 5-2, now goes back to JPA/County/A’s for approval

A lease agreement was passed tonight. Not the lease agreement the JPA sent to Oakland’s City Council. Instead the Council voted 5-2 (with 1 abstention) to approve an amended lease that included fairly minor changes. Among those changes:

  • A clarification on how the A’s use their termination clause. Example: If the A’s provide notice on January 1, 2016, the lease ends on December 31, 2018. If they provide notice after 1/1/16, termination doesn’t occur until 2019. This was not actually a point of dispute, it’s just that the language was somewhat confusing so an example was provided.
  • A typo in the the agenda document indicated that the the developer fee/deposit for continuing redevelopment at the Coliseum (Coliseum City) was both $10 million and $20 million. This was clarified as $10 million, and was agreed upon in the lease approved by the JPA on July 3.
  • A new section 42.7 that codified lease practices defined in the 2013 (current) lease.
  • A section on Licensor (JPA) default was removed for some reason. It has been added back to the agreement.
  • If the A’s are sold, there is a clause (16.1) that explains how the team transfers the lease to the new owner without requiring JPA approval. The requested change is to include the fact that new owner must be MLB-approved.
  • Removal of language that makes the JPA liable for Raiders’ acts/omissions that are approved by the JPA. The language now solely deals with the A’s revenues and benefits going strictly to the A’s, not to any third party.
  • There’s also a need to clean up language, which is customary in contract negotiations. It’s unclear what those cleanups are.

All in all, there’s little reason for the A’s to decline the lease. On the other hand, these changes are so minor it’s a wonder why they had to be debated in public, with the exception of the typo in the second bullet point.

Council President Pat Kernighan put forth a motion early on to consider the lease with these amendments. That caused CM Larry Reid, who is also a JPA board member, to put forth his own substitute motion that would have the Council vote on the lease as is. At the end of the session, Reid’s substitute motion lost 4-3. Kernighan’s won 5-2. After the votes the Council tried to clear up whether or not the JPA or the Alameda County Board of Supervisors would have to vote on the revised agreement. Naturally, the answer is YES. The BoS will meet on July 29 to go over this new lease and perhaps the old lease two, so they may end up voting on both. The JPA will have to take another special session vote shortly thereafter, and A’s ownership will also have to sign off.

A’s President Mike Crowley was on hand to witness the festivities. After JPA counsel Jon Streeter presented the lease in great detail and asked questions, Crowley was asked to provide a comment on the amended lease. Kernighan was concerned about putting Crowley on the spot, while Reid encouraged Crowley’s opinion. Crowley said that he preferred the original lease as is, though he allowed for the typo correction. After the vote he said he was “disappointed” by the Council’s action. Whether he’s disappointed in the terms or in the fact that everyone’s in for 2 more weeks of gestation over a lease wasn’t clear. Crowley reserved further comment until he had a chance to review the terms.  Kernighan mentioned that she talked with Lew Wolff earlier in the morning, and with a caveat that she wasn’t representing him, revealed that the changes didn’t seem like showstoppers.

There was plenty of time for grandstanding, so several Council members took turns doing it. CM Desley Brooks considers the lease a regression from terms outlined last November. Streeter rebutted that, explaining the back-and-forth of the lease talks that dated back to a year ago. Streeter’s main points were that the A’s are paying double the annual rent of the pre-2013 deal, were guaranteeing $20 million even if they stayed less than the full 10 years, and provides flexibility for all interests (A’s, Raiders, BayIG, JPA, City/County). CM Dan Kalb was unusually high-strung,

Kalb went on to chastise the A’s in advance, in case the A’s don’t approve the deal with the changes. Reid and Noel Gallo were the dissenters, instead voting for the original agreement. They both sowed FUD in their comments, Gallo was more restrained while Reid pulled the full “do what you want, it’s not my fault” card.

Libby Schaaf’s comments were noticeably brief, calling an approved lease (without saying which one) a crucial step towards keeping the A’s in Oakland. Both Schaaf and Rebecca Kaplan opened with some campaign speak, which I necessarily tuned out. Schaaf, Kaplan, Kalb, Kernighan, and Lynette Gibson McElhany provided the Yes votes.

A bizarre moment came late when Alameda County Supervisor and JPA President Nate Miley took time to explain to Gallo how the City of Oakland’s Coliseum City discussions with BayIG worked. At least an hour was spent explaining details that the Council not only should’ve known weeks ago. Current former JPA members such as Reid, Kaplan, and Brooks talked up their knowledge of the issues, yet the rest of the Council seemed inexplicably in the dark. Before Kernighan made her motion, Brooks asked for a full presentation, this after Streeter answered numerous questions about the lease and negotiation.  Communication between the JPA, City, and County is so broken that it’s hard not to be skeptical about the group’s ability to work out a deal as large and complex as Coliseum City. The lack of preparation on the Council’s part was on full display and it wasn’t pretty.

Nearly 30 public comments were given. They included Raiders fans like Dr. Death and Bauce, who raged against the Council. Lil Bartholo spoke first about the team’s and MLB’s blackmail and extortion techniques. The anti-lease, generally anti-Wolff crowd was well represented. However, interspersed among them were several A’s employees who mostly spoke about simply keeping the A’s in Oakland. Out of the five employees I observed, only one overtly called for the lease to be approved. They talked about how they were both fans and employees, about how some of them had union jobs, about how they were trying to collectively bargain for benefits, but the lease fiasco puts such negotiations on hold. An SEIU rep even called for the lease to be tied to a 10-year labor agreement, which is probably an overreach. Regardless, the image of employees coming forth to stand for their jobs was powerful.

Also present was a rep from the scoreboard installation company that could be contracted to work on the Coliseum. The man (whose name I didn’t get) emphasized that the lease had to be approved soon to allow for the equipment to be ordered and installed in time for the next baseball season. Emperor Nobody got some good anger at the system in, though he ran out of time (he’s on the KTVU clip so that’s good, right?).

Attorney Streeter acquitted himself well, handling all of the questions that came his way. He had to explain the rent provisions at least twice, and covered all of the major lease aspects well. It took 2 hours and 10 minutes, but the $200 million debt elephant finally came up. There’s no obvious answer as to how it the debt gets retired. Miley mentioned that the A’s are looking to buy the Coliseum land. Those who distrust Wolff don’t believe that. Streeter then boiled down the whole point of the lease. 

Streeter addressed the A’s-Oakland parking fee dispute. Arbitration is pending. Oakland is asking for $5.4 million. If the City wins they could also be reimbursed $600,000 in legal fees. The amount that the A’s are willing to pay was not disclosed. Streeter factored a discounted amount of a potential arbitration award into the lease. Why? There’s the inherent risk that the City could lose the arbitration. That makes the lease a sort of hedge.

Finally, as further questions were asked about the leases of both the A’s and Raiders, especially the ongoing operating subsidy. While I’ve always known about the subsidy, I’ve never heard it explained in such simple terms. Basically it goes like this:

  • The A’s pay for all gameday operations: power, water, groundskeeping, security. This is for a 180-day season.
  • The A’s pay $1.5 million in rent per season.
  • The A’s receive revenue from pouring rights, stadium advertising, and a chunk of concessions.
  • The A’s keep parking revenue with the exception of the tax that has to be paid to the City & County.

Contrast this with the Raiders

  • The Raiders pay $400,000 per year in rent.
  • The Raiders split parking revenues with the JPA, their share being roughly $1.75 million for the 2013 season.
  • The Raiders pay for zero stadium operating costs, and are subsidized to the tune of $7 million per year, including the costs to convert the stadium between baseball and football (and vice-versa).

Late tonight, word came that the Raiders may want a year extension, though it wasn’t clear if that’s on top of the 2015 option year or something else. I hope the Raiders’ lease gets the same kind of scrutiny the A’s lease gets. It’s the painful yet needed part of the ongoing adult conversation.

—

P.S. – Wolff met with San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed yesterday at the SJ Fairmont. The meeting was described as a “check-in.”

07.16.14
by

Oakland City Council Meeting 7/16 Open Thread

If, like me, you can’t make it to the meeting tonight, you can watch the stream here. You’ll need Silverlight or Real Player to watch. If anyone knows how I can embed one of these old Granicus streams, I’ll post it here.

The comments are open if you want to have a civil, on-topic discussion. I’ll also be live tweeting and mirroring here.

Reference documents (PDF):
Agenda
Coliseum Lease