City pitches A’s a Plan B, but team resists Coliseum
Now that the A’s have struck out with their preferred site for a new ballpark, Oakland officials are hoping they’ll take yet another look at building a new home right where they are — at the Coliseum.
But the A’s, reeling from the gut punch that Peralta Community College District trustees delivered to them the other day, aren’t exactly buying the idea.
The Coliseum site certainly has plenty to offer that the team’s first choice, next to Laney College, did not — a huge parking lot, easy freeway access, and acres of land for housing, hotels and entertainment development.
“It already has the infrastructure,” said City
Councilman Noel Gallo.
“The fact that the environmental clearance is already completed for the Coliseum site would also provide cost savings and time savings,” said Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan.
In fact, before he retired as the A’s managing partner, Lew Wolff concluded that the Coliseum was the only viable spot in Oakland for a new ballpark, But he also thought the A’s would need control of some of the property, which the city and Alameda County were reluctant to hand over while the Raiders were still in play.
With the Raiders moving to Las Vegas, the land could be freed up.
The Oakland Alameda County Coliseum Authority has discussed the idea of selling or leasing some or all of the 130acre Coliseum site to the A’s, who would then arrange for development that would help pay for a new baseball-only stadium.
“There is a package deal that can be done with the team and a developer ... that would be a nice return for everybody, and provide additional tax dollars to the city and county,” said Scott McKibben, executive director of the Coliseum Authority.
But Councilman Larry Reid said he spoke to A’s President Dave Kaval after the team announced the decision to pursue the Laney site, and “he told me, ‘We just can’t get a stadium privately financed at the Coliseum.’ ”
That’s because,while the Coliseum site has plenty to offer, it also has plenty of problems.
For starters, there’s the location. It’s in East Oakland, 5 miles from the up-and-coming neighborhoods where the A’s had hoped a “walkable” ballpark would make it easier to draw casual fans to games, concerts and other events.
The team also concluded that an East Oakland ballpark wouldn’t generate the luxury suite sales or naming rights and other ad revenue needed to pay for a $500 million ballpark.
Another drawback is the likely value of the adjacent development.
At a minimum cost of $4.50 per square foot for construction, a 1,000square-foot, two-bedroom apartment at the Coliseum would have to rent for as much as $4,500 a month. You might be able to charge that downtown, but it would be a tough sell in East Oakland.
Likewise for office or retail — which explains why there haven’t been any big market-rate developments around the Coliseum in years.
And public money isn’t an option — Mayor Libby Schaaf has made that clear.
McKibben doesn’t necessarily buy the A’s pessimism about the Coliseum, saying any development there will get done far faster and cheaper than one downtown.
However, he isn’t getting a warm reception from the team.
Kaval has been silent publicly since the Laney College site collapsed, a development that the team said left it “shocked.” McKibben sent him a text, inviting him to sit down and talk “once the dust settles.”
“The dust has settled,” Kaval texted back. “There is no reason to meet.” Game on: Just in time for Christmas, the Occupy Oakland riots of 2011 have been immortalized in a new video game simulator called “Riot: Civil Unrest.”
Players can be police and choose “whether to use smoke grenades, rubber and plastic bullets, Tasers or even live ammunition,” among other tactical options.
Or they can be rioters and “attack authority with Molotov cocktails, fireworks, paper-bombs, rocks, street furniture and the power of the media.”
For what it’s worth, hurling a reporter at a police line almost never works.
According to the Merge Games promo, “Rather than attempting to popularize violence to a desensitized video game generation, the developers set out to create a game in which force and violence work short term but patience and passive actions yield far more positive outcomes.”
Merge Games says it sold 10,000 copies in the first 24 hours — at $11.69 apiece, with the introductory discount.