Refined Coliseum City plan on table
Kephart submits proposal to keep Raiders in Oakland
OAKLAND — Floyd Kephart, the businessman once heralded as offering Oakland’s best chance to keep the Raiders, submitted a refined plan for the Coliseum City megadevelopment Friday amid growing doubt that he can keep the team from leaving town.
Under his contract with Oakland and Alameda County, Kephart’s confidential filing Friday must include a proposal for financing the construction of an estimated $ 900 million football stadium adjacent to O. co Coliseum, as well as the redevelopment of nearly 100 surrounding acres into a mini- downtown full of homes, offices and shops.
He also is required to disclose his financial backers and submit the final terms needed to get one of Oakland’s sports teams to back the project.
Kephart, 73, and without major development experience, emerged as an unlikely savior last October after two major development firms gave up on Coliseum City. Touting his connections to hedge funds, he insisted that money was not the issue for the $ 4 billion project. But his initial proposal submitted in June was widely panned, and he still doesn’t have a buy- in from the Raiders, who are pursuing a joint Los Angelesarea stadium plan with the San Diego Chargers.
“What’s missing to me is the beef,” said Andy Dolich, a sports business consultant and former A’s executive who doesn’t expect Kephart to be successful. “You have nothing unless you have a team. And you have nothing for the team unless you have money to build a new stadium.”
With Kephart back at the drawing board, the city recently stepped up stadium talks with both the Raiders and the Oakland A’s, who are interested in building a new ballpark but long ago ruled out working with Kephart.
Assistant City Claudia Administrator Cappio said Oakland plans to make “very serious offers to both teams” but declined to comment on whether reviewing Kephart’s filing might distract from the city’s own talks with the Raiders, who could get NFL approval to move to Los Angeles early next year.
“It’s all part of coming to some set of conclusions soon,” she said. “We have to move forward in a way that benefits the city, both teams and the county.”
Kephart, who is scheduled to address an invitationonly audience Tuesday morning in Oakland, declined Friday to discuss the filing, which is not slated to be released publicly.
If Kephart’s final proposal fails to gain traction, Oakland and Alameda County, which jointly own the 120- acre Coliseum site, can cut ties with him when his exclusive negotiating rights for the project expire on Sept. 24, Cappio said.
If lawmakers like what they see this time around, they could also extend the agreement or move forward with a deal.
Kephart has a daunting challenge in making Oakland’s Coliseum City vision a reality. He must satisfy the Raiders and the NFL, which want the focus to be on the stadium rather than the ancillary development and expect some public money for stadium construction — a condition local leaders have flatly rejected.
He must also satisfy Alameda County, which is more interested in recouping its share of the nearly $ 100 million debt remaining from a past renovation of O. co Coliseum than in partnering on a new development.
Kephart didn’t endear himself to either party in June with the submittal of his initial financing plan, which was obtained and published in this newspaper.
It called for a company Kephart founded to buy nearly 90 acres of the Coliseum complex for $ 116 million, with the city and county pumping most of the proceeds from the sale into the construction of parking garages needed for the housing, office and retail development. That would leave little left over for helping build a new stadium or pay off public debt on the existing one.
Kephart also proposed that his firm would buy a 20 percent stake in the Raiders for $ 200 million, with the team expected to put half of the sales price toward stadium construction.
Alameda County was so turned off by the plan that it asked the city to buy out its share of land. Doing so would allow the city to work directly with Kephart.
Meanwhile, the Raiders have pressed forward with the Los Angeles stadium plan, and NFL Executive Vice President Eric Grubman told KFWB in Los Angeles this month that Kephart had used the Oakland football stadium as a tool to get the larger development done. “That is what unfolded,” he said.
It’s also unclear whether Kephart still has much of a constituency at City Hall.
Councilman Larry Reid, an early booster, acknowledged that Kephart will have a challenge in structuring a deal that satisfies all parties.
“It all comes down to money,” Reid said. “We’ll have to wait and see. The clock is ticking.”