Article in the Commercial Property News

Oakland Stadium's Mixed-Use Plan: Home Run or Foul Ball?
August 22, 2005
By Eugene Gilligan, Senior Editor

A mixed-use development has been proposed for the area around a proposed new baseball stadium to house baseball's Oakland Athletics. The site, envisioned to be as large as 140 acres, has been proposed by team owner Lew Wolff. It would include condominiums, shops, restaurants, and a hotel, to be built in the East Oakland section.

One Oakland real estate veteran said the plan has merit, but will be difficult to execute. "It will be great to have something like this," said Craig Hagglund, principal of Lee & Associates/East Bay, Inc. "But I see it as tough to put together."

The reason, he said, is the lack of vacant land in the area proposed for the development. The area is a "land-poor area" of mostly industrial buildings. "You have hundreds of different property owners that you're going to have to deal with," Hagglund said. "They may have to use eminent domain to get them out."

A better location for the ballpark and surrounding mixed-use development would be near Jack London Square, just west of the city's CBD, he said. Formerly an old industrial section, the area has been reborn, due to a heavy dose of retail and residential construction. "Over the past 10 years, it's become a great area," Hagglund said.

Another idea that has more merit is building a waterfront ballpark on property owned by the Port of Oakland, which has also been proposed, in various forms, over the past decade, he said. "It would be right on the water, much like SBC Park," Hagglund said, speaking of the popular well received home of the San Francisco Giants, which opened in 2000.