Alameda County sells Coliseum ownership to A’s

OAKLAND >> Alameda County supervisors on Monday unanimously approved the sale of the county’s half-ownership share of the Oakland Coliseum to the A’s for $85 million.

The county and the A’s have been negotiating the deal since April. County officials have expressed a desire to get out of the sports business, and the A’s intend to convert the Coliseum site into a mixeduse development including housing, office, park and retail space in order to fund the construction of a new 35,000-seat ballpark at Howard Terminal along the estuary near Jack London Square.

County supervisors called a special meeting Monday where they unanimously voted to close the deal. All were in agreement that owning the property was eating up too much of the county’s money and resources, and that the terms of the agreement favored the county.

“We’re getting an excellent deal for this, from my perspective,” Supervisor Nate Miley told the Bay Area News Group. “$85 million is little bit above the actual appraisal price, it’s covering our costs with a deposit on top of that, we’ve conditioned that the A’s stay in Oakland, if they leave Oakland we still get our $85 million, so I can’t see any downside.”

Alameda County economic consultant Jason Moody, at Monday’s meeting, said the county’s halfownership share was worth $82 million, based on a 2016 appraisal report from real estate firm Cushman and Wakefield and adjusted for inflation. Miley said the purchase price would allow the county to pay off its debt on its the 1995 renovation of the coliseum that the city and county used to lure the Raiders to return to Oakland from Los Angeles.

The A’s will put $5 million down immediately as a deposit, which will remain in escrow for 190 days while the A’s investigates the property. The A’s will pay $10 million a year to the county until 2023, and $15 million a year from 2024 to 2026. The A’s will also foot the annual $5 million bill for operating costs.

“We’re making a huge financial commitment to this community,” A’s president Dave Kaval said at a news conference after the meeting. “…this is something that no other professional sports team has ever done. The money has always come the other way as a public subsidy to these actual sports teams. We are investing in Oakland, in Alameda County, and we’re doing that because we believe in this community.”

The decision comes about a month after the City of Oakland dropped its lawsuit against the county seeking to stop the sale. The lawsuit alleged a county sale of its ownership share would be illegal under the state’s Surplus Land Act, which requires publicly owned land that’s up for sale to first be offered for affordable housing, parks or open space. But after the A’s made an official offer to the city to buy its share of the coliseum ownership for $85 million, the city dropped the suit.

Pastors L.J. Jennings of the Kingdom Builders Christian Fellowship and Bishop Robert L. Jackson of Acts Full Gospel Church of God in Christ, at Monday’s meeting, said they were concerned about the displacement of AfricanAmericans both in West Oakland if the A’s fulfill their plan of building a new stadium at Howard Terminal and in East Oakland depending on how the coliseum site is redeveloped.

“When we really think about selling public land, we need to be concerned about those individuals currently in this city and how it will effect how they are able to remain in this city,” Jennings said.

Kaval, after the meeting, said the A’s are committed to building affordable housing at the Coliseum site to prevent displacement, as well as offering “robust” benefits to the community as part of its agreement with the City of Oakland.