Team’s Vegas talks continue
ARLINGTON, Texas — A’s officials concluded a third visit to the Las Vegas area Friday and have another one scheduled to begin July 21, a day after Oakland’s City Council is scheduled to vote on the A’s waterfront ballpark development proposal, team President Dave Kaval said.
The A’s have been exploring Southern Nevada for relocation possibilities in the leadup to the critical Oakland council vote on whether to approve the team’s nonbinding term sheet for its $12 billion project that includes a ballpark at Howard Terminal near Jack London Square.
Kaval said A’s officials met the past two days with elected officials and community and business leaders in Southern Nevada and continued to review potential ballpark sites there. He said the A’s have viewed about 20
sites, mostly along Las Vegas’ resort corridor or in nearby Summerlin or Henderson.
“We’re kind of on a cadence to come here every two weeks, to continue to build momentum, to understand the feasibility of the market and to keep the parallel paths going, especially because of all the uncertainty around Oakland,” Kaval said.
At a special meeting Wednesday, Oakland City Council members criticized the A’s for not including affordable housing in their $12 billion project proposal. City law requires developers to build a certain number of affordable housing units in housing projects or, alternatively, pay an impact fee to the city. The A’s propose creating two infrastructure taxfinancing districts to fund a $450 million communitybenefits package. Kaval said at Wednesday’s meeting the city could have discretion to use the $450 million how it sees fit.
Kaval said in a phone interview Friday: “I think for us, it was really important to hear directly from the council members. I think our takeaway there is that we remain very far apart between our proposal, really visionary proposal, at the waterfront and what the City Council would like to see.
“Obviously, we don’t know what’s going to happen over the next two weeks. We’re continuing our conversations and negotiations with city staff. But by the same token, I’ve been really clear that we were really looking for them to vote on our proposal … and that we can’t accept a ‘yes’ vote on something that we don’t agree with.”
The A’s project includes a $1 billion, privately financed ballpark, 3,000 residential units, up to 1.5 million square feet of commercial space, up to 270,000 square feet of retail space, an indoor performance center, and up to 18 acres of publicly accessible open space.
The A’s have proposed creating two infrastructure taxfinancing districts to raise funds toward the project and agreed not to move for 20 years. The city has proposed using one taxfinancing district with Alameda County and a nonrelocation agreement of at least 45 years from the A’s.
Kaval said of the organization’s Oakland proposal: “We do want it to work sincerely. We’ve put everything into this and all we’re asking for is an updown vote.”
Still, Kaval said that even if Oakland’s council approves the term sheet July 20, A’s officials intend to make their next Vegasarea visit.
“Keep in mind, even if we have a positive vote on the 20th, that’s a nonbinding vote,” Kaval said. “Even if we get through the economic terms with the city — which we’re hopeful that they vote positively on the 20th with our plan — there’s still the environmental clearance and how that plays out as well. So there’s several pieces and that’s why we need to have these parallel paths going.”