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Are the A's worth it to Fremont's neighbors?
Union City, Newark, Milpitas leaders wish to speak with city, team officials

By Chris De Benedetti, STAFF WRITER
Article Launched: 12/25/2006 08:58:31 AM PST

FREMONT "” In suburban developments throughout the Tri-City area, checking out one's new neighbors is a typical dynamic.

So it should come as no surprise that surrounding cities are eyeballing the Oakland A's and their plans to make Fremont home.

Like any neighbors, some leaders from nearby Milpitas, Newark and Union City understandably are excited. Team co-owner Lew Wolff's plans to build a stadium and surrounding mixed-use "village" near Fremont's Pacific Commons shopping center may enhance the city's economic development and tax revenue.

It also may bring an ancillary sense of prestige to those towns "” which often are overlooked, underrated parts of the Bay Area.

However, many of those same leaders are quick to mention their concerns about the stadium's possible impacts.

The top worry? Far and away, it involves traffic and transportation "” especially given the site's lack of public transit options.

A second concern is the possibility that other cities' infrastructure costs and resources may be drained by the ballpark village planned for at least a 150-acre plot west of Interstate 880.

But the good news for Fremont boosters is their neighbors' seeming eagerness to work with them
in search of solutions.

Potentially positive effects

A thriving mixed-use development featuring about 2,000 housing units, retail, restaurants, parking spaces and a hotel adjacent to a 35,000-seat ballpark would be a massive project for New York City, let alone Fremont, City Manager Fred Diaz told this newspaper last month.

City officials hope the property and sales tax revenue the development generates will be just as big.

Leaders such as Milpitas Vice Mayor Bob Livengood hope a financial spillover will benefit their cities.

"We have a lot of hotel rooms in Milpitas," Livengood said, noting the city's four major hotels. "With the right marketing approach, ... there is potential that people will fill them while visiting for the baseball game."

Is Livengood afraid of the opposite scenario, where Wolff's ballpark village and at least one hotel might actually direct people farther from Milpitas' lodging and retail businesses? "No, the (visiting) teams don't always stay at hotels near the stadium "” that's to keep the players away from the press," he said. "I'm not so sure that any hotel so close to the stadium will suck up all the business."

Newark Mayor Dave Smith said he also is excited by the prospect of luring baseball fans to the Tri-City area. He sees a lot of benefits in exposing Newark businesses to thousands more people driving down I-880.

"The A's draw from such a wide fan base all over Northern California, so we'll get people in this area who otherwise wouldn't be here," Smith said.

The A's coming to Fremont is a plus for Union City, too, Mayor Mark Green said.

In fact, Green views the site's roughly five-mile distance from the Fremont BART station and discussions of putting a Capitol Corridor train station to serve the ballpark village as a plus for Union City.

"In the future, I could see Concord folks taking BART to Union City and stopping there to spend some of their money before transferring (to the ballpark) with a Capitol Corridor train," Green said.

He added: "But if I was in Newark, I might be telling you different things. I could see where people coming from the Peninsula will take back roads through Newark to get to the ballpark."

Potential harm

The Newark mayor brought up that very issue when he met recently with Fremont Mayor Bob Wasserman, Smith said.

Newark, like the proposed ballpark site, is west of I-880.

Already, commuters are known to exit I-880 when there is a problem on the freeway and clog Cherry Street and Cedar Boulevard in Newark, added Smith, who also met with Wolff last month.

"If you look at how those streets line up with respect to the ballpark (site), it would be logical for people coming from the Peninsula or south on 880 to get on our surface streets," he said. "That is my concern."

Still, Smith said he favors the A's move to nearby Fremont, calling baseball a "family-oriented product."

In Milpitas, it also is very important to help the city deal with its clogged roadways, said Livengood, a longtime City Council member.

Key Milpitas arteries that connect I-880 and I-680, such as East Calaveras Boulevard and Montague Expressway, already are known as some of the most congested stretches of road in the Bay Area, Livengood added.

"Baseball stadiums are particularly tough on commute-time traffic, because most of the games are in the middle of the week," he said. "We would like to sit down with Fremont and the A's and discuss ways we can mitigate that traffic."

Meanwhile, Union City Vice Mayor Richard Valle said that he fully supports the A's planned move to Fremont because of its "great economic opportunity." Still, he announced at a recent City Council meeting that he is worried about impacts on the region's water and sewer infrastructure that the large ballpark village project might have.

Valle also is concerned about Union City and the Bay Area's finite number of public transit funds being affected.

"I want to be sure that the A's do not impose on the taxpayers of Union City, or in any way hurt our (planned) intermodal station by siphoning off transit funds," he said.


Staff writer Chris De Benedetti covers Fremont issues. Contact him at (510) 353-7002 or cdebenedetti@angnewspapers.com.