A’s pitch to buy the Oakland Coliseum misses the mark
After all these years, it’s great to see the Oakland A’s pitch a deal to buy the Coliseum. But city and county officials shouldn’t swing at the first offering.
Any agreement to sell the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum site to the team should make taxpayers whole. The era of publicly subsidized sports venues must end. Unfortunately, the A’s offer misses that mark.
Nevertheless, the offer is welcome news that suggests the team is sincere about staying in Oakland when it replaces its outdated ballpark — and has finally begun to recognize that the best site for that is the one where they currently play.
Over more than a decade, the A’s have proposed ballpark plans for San Jose, Fremont and, most recently, the Peralta site adjacent to Laney College in Oakland.
Each was fraught with legal or community obstacles. No other location provides the BART and freeway access that the Coliseum offers.
With the Raiders’ and Warriors’ impending departures, the 120-acre Coliseum site is ripe for A’s President Dave Kaval to build his field of dreams and the vibrant surrounding community of restaurants, small businesses and homes he covets.
Kaval’s pitch to purchase the land could be a win-winwin for fans, taxpayers and the team. But, of course, the devil is in the details.
The first question is whether the team is ready to commit to the site. Kaval hasn’t committed to building a ballpark there. He says he wants to tie up the land so it doesn’t get away. Meanwhile, he says, he’s also still evaluating the Howard Terminal site near Jack London Square.
Yet, he’s proposing buying the Coliseum land at a discount. That’s unacceptable. Oakland and Alameda County cannot afford to give away public assets.
Kaval proposes purchasing the site in exchange for paying off the Coliseum’s outstanding public debt, which he puts at more than $135 million. That’s the wrong approach to negotiations.
What’s relevant is the value of the property, not the amount of the mortgage against it. The last appraisal on the property put its value at about $150 million. The public deserves nothing less.
Moreover, the A’s offer based on the debt is a moving, and declining, target. The debt is money owed to bondholders who financed improvements the Raiders wanted for the stadium and the Warriors wanted for the arena.
By the time the two teams leave, the taxpayer liability will be significantly less than $135 million. Indeed, it could be much less if the Warriors lose the pending legal fight over whether they can walk away from $40 million of bond payments when they move to San Francisco.
Like a 15-inning game, the A’s search for a new home has dragged on for far too long. It’s time for the team to commit to the Coliseum, pay the fair-market price and start construction of a new ballpark.
And, oh yes, field a winning team.