How San Jose can avoid Oakland's boiling sports problem

Oakland is having a lonely sports summer. It's been watching the Warriors' NBA championship quest in San Francisco from across the bay. The NFL's Raiders left town a few years ago. Meanwhile, the baseball A's have threatened to leave for Las Vegas unless the Oakland City Council approves the franchise's $12 billion Howard Terminal ballpark development plan.

San Jose should be paying attention. And taking notes.

The A's situation did not develop overnight. It simmered and gurgled for years as East Bay politicos kept deflecting or hoping someone else would solve the problem. Now things are finally boiling over.

Guess what? San Jose's NHL hockey franchise is gurgling. And it's best to take care of that before any boiling begins.

The Sharks are in a profoundly anxious state about what is to come in their longtime Downtown West neighborhood. For the next 10 years, construction of a huge new Google campus and numerous other projects — a large new Diridon train station, a BART line extension, a hotel and other mixed use buildings — could surround SAP Center.

The last time anything like this happened in San Jose was during the 1980s as new VTA tracks were being laid throughout downtown. Streets were ripped up. Access was blocked. Businesses were shuttered. It was a civic travesty.

The Sharks fear a repeat outside their front door when the Google construction begins next year. When it's completed — perhaps by 2035? — the result could be amazing. But getting the many moving parts to mesh and snap into place smoothly over the next decade will be like solving a giant four-dimensional Rubik's Cube full of bulldozers and cranes and girders.

The Sharks, meanwhile, feel they have little control over the process. They have seen no comprehensive Rubik's Cube attack plan. San Jose officials say they are sensitive to the Sharks' concerns. In April of 2021, the city announced it was “working on a construction mitigation plan” for Downtown West. Yet more than a year later, no overall mitigation framework has surfaced. There are macro guidelines. But no micro details.

What if Santa Clara Street is closed or constricted in front of SAP Center for an entire year? What if construction impedes access on three different sides of the arena and forces hockey fans to make a long, convoluted detour to reach the only SAP center entrance? Eventually, customers may just stay away. And the team could think seriously about exiting downtown San Jose.

The Sharks' lease at SAP Center runs through 2040. But that's cosmetic. The franchise can unilaterally opt out with 36 months' notice. It's important to note that Sharks' owner Hasso Plattner says he has no intention of doing that. It's also important to note that, so far, the Rubik's Cube dialogue has been publicly civil, with San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo holding hands and providing marriage counseling between Google and the Sharks. But behind the scenes, if you talk to the involved parties, it's a very uneasy truce.

With Liccardo's term ending soon, the Sharks' gurgling will be inherited by successor Cindy Chavez or Matt Mahan, who will oppose each other in a November runoff election. Their top priorities will (and must) be crime and homelessness. But the Sharks' gurgling shouldn't be deflected or patronized. Chavez has called for a “downtown wide” construction management plan. Mahan has advocated for a “point person” at City Hall to take the Sharks' phone calls. Sounds swell. Also sounds bureaucratically vague.

Vague isn't good. The city needs to hire a dedicated “Rubik's Cube Ruler” with the power to temporarily halt a street blockage or postpone a groundbreaking or call emergency meetings to resolve minor issues before they morph into major ones. Monitoring the gurgling in real time will be crucial.

Because come 2026 or 2030, San Jose does not want to be boiling like Oakland.