Al Davis found perfect property for Raiders’ compound
This story was originally published on June 7, 1996.
ALAMEDA >> Five months after Al Davis decided to move his team back to Oakland, the Raiders managing general partner still hadn’t found a site for his team’s regular-season training facility.
The team had planned to build on the site of its old facility near the Oakland Airport, but problems with the soil caused complications. Even Davis was starting to get antsy.
Davis was looking over the site of the old facility when he told his limo driver to drive down Harbor Bay Parkway, about a mile past the old training site.
“I told (the driver) to stop the car,” Davis said at a press conference. “It was like Shangri-La. I saw this building and this facility and I saw this sign out there that said ‘For Sale.’ I said, ‘Drive around this damn place.’
“I knew the building captivated me and I wanted to know if there was land in back. Sure enough, I took a look out back and I said, I wonder if this land is for sale?’”
It was, and Davis bought it. The Oakland Raiders’ World Championship flag was flapping in the breeze over the site of their new regular-season training facility Thursday. It promises to be one of the top facilities in the NFL.
“This building is magnificent,” said Raiders legal affairs expert Amy Trask. “If you wanted to build something from scratch, you couldn’t have dreamt of something as nice as this.”
The Raiders will move into a 100,000-square-foot building at 1220 Harbor Bay Parkway on June 15. Three football fields are being built on adjacent land. The Raiders have 55,000 square feet of space at their facility in El Segundo.
Davis projects the cost of the entire venture to be between $13.5 million and $16 million dollars. Davis received a $10 million loan from the city of Oakland for the construction of training facilities as part of the package that lured the team to the East Bay.
The land was in bankruptcy, which delayed the transaction for months. The Raiders will share the building, which was built in 1985, with another tenant for approximately eight months and will construct temporary locker rooms and meeting rooms until the tenant, a check processing company, moves out.
The Raiders toured several other NFL training facilities and believe theirs will be the most luxurious in the league, which may help the team attract free agents.
”Besides the beauty and class, operationally, this will be tremendous,” said Raiders senior assistant Bruce Allen, a former agent. “If you’re sitting in a clean and classy meeting room, you have a better chance to learn. If you’re in a bright, modern weight room you’re more likely to want to work out. It has unlimited opportunity for us.”
Blueprints reveal plans for a sand exercise track, a grass inclined exercise track and an extensive jogging path. The team may decide to construct an indoor practice field with an artificial turf surface sometime in the future.