A’s, city still not on same page
Recommended terms approved, but team says it’s not ‘a path forward’
OAKLAND >> The Oakland City Council made clear on Tuesday what they want the financial terms to look like for the A’s $12 billion 55-acre proposed waterfront ballpark project, but it’s unclear if it will be enough to keep the team at the negotiating table and in Oakland.
Even after city staff and councilmembers publicly proposed amendments that would guarantee the A’s don’t have to pay for infrastructure funding around the proposed ballpark and development on Howard Terminal, A’s Team President Dave Kaval rejected the city’s terms.
“The current term sheet even with these amendments is not something the A’s have consensus around,” Kaval said, after complimenting the city staff on working hard to create the latest proposal. “From our perspective, this is not a term sheet that works for the A’s. We had a term sheet we originally proposed. … The current term sheet as it’s constructed is not a business partnership that works for us.”
The A’s had released their own term sheet in April, but numerous Oakland residents, community leaders and city officials said it relied too heavily on public financing. When city staff released its own proposed financial framework on Friday, Kaval warned then that a City Council approval of those terms would mean a “no” vote from the team in moving forward with the project.
Kaval said during the meeting Tuesday before the council voted that he wants to “work with the council to see how we can get something we agree to before
the (council’s summer) recess,” but also emphasized his point that approving the city’s term sheet was not “a path forward.”
The City Council expressed their disappointment that the A’s said they wouldn’t get on board with the latest iteration of the terms.
“I’m not exactly sure why we’re even here today,” Carroll Fife, the councilmember representing District 3, where the ballpark’s proposed future home at Howard Terminal is located, after Kaval spoke.
“All the hours that went into creating this document, as well as almost three hours of public testimony is just a fraction of the investment that’s gone into this process,” Fife continued. “If the A’s are still not happy even after city has bent over backwards … even with how these wealthy owners dont have to pay for infrastructure. I don’t know where we go from here.”
She abstained from voting on the draft terms that the majority of the City Council approved.
Other City Council members expressed their hope that the A’s would come back to the negotiating table to continue discussing the financial terms that can be finalized later in the year.
“Based on our extensive negotiations, shared values and shared vision, we believe the A’s can and should agree to the terms approved by the City Council today,” read a written statement issued jointly by Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, Vice Mayor Rebecca Kaplan and Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas. “This is the path to keeping the A’s Rooted in Oakland in a way that protects our Port and tax payers and will produce the benefits our community demands and deserves.”
It was unclear, though, immediately following the meeting, if the team will agree to that.
Despite that no final vote can be taken to seal the terms until a draft environmental impact report is ready for approval later this year, Kaval has said in recent months that the team needed to know immediately if the City Council “shared the vision” the team has for the project, and requested a vote before the end of the summer.
Now that the City Council has approved terms that its staff has recommended, it’s up to the A’s to decide if they’ll keep negotiating with the city or leave for a new city, as Kaval has threatened to do.
This week, Kaval and team leaders have plans to visit Las Vegas. He has described the pursuits of getting a ballpark in Oakland as being on a “parallel path” to the one in Las Vegas, prompting some to question if the team is truly “rooted in Oakland,” as they’ve touted in marketing materials.
In Oakland, A’s want to build a 35,000-seat ballpark and as many as 3,000 residential units, 1.5 million square feet of office space, 270,000 square feet of mixed retail, a 3,500-seat performance theater, 400 hotel rooms and about 18 acres of parks and open space at Howard Terminal, which is part of the Port of Oakland not too far from Jack London Square.
The city and the A’s are at odds over how to pay for the $352 million costs for infrastructure — such as parking management, pedestrian bridges over railroad tracks, and other transportation improvements — surrounding the 55-acre ballpark, retail and housing development.