Wow! This is quickly turning out to be a migraine for Selig as well as the A's ownership...and the Marlins aren't in good shape, either - Transic

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/...02/20/BAAK161PL7.DTL


A's halt plans for ballpark village in Fremont

Carolyn Jones, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, February 20, 2009

(02-20) 11:50 PST Fremont -- Oakland Athletics officials today asked the City of Fremont to halt the planning process required to build a new stadium and move the team there, saying they want to reconsider their options.

The Fremont city clerk's office issued a notice today saying the A's have asked the city to stop the environmental review and notice of preparation processes, which would have paved the way for the team to build a $1.8 billion "ballpark village" next to the Don Edwards National Wildlife Refuge.

"I think this means the A's aren't going to build this here, at least not at that site," said Fremont Mayor Bob Wasserman. "I think it's terrible. Fremont's lost the best opportunity we've ever had."

The A's plan, initially unveiled in 2007, called for a 32,000-seat stadium, 3,100 units of housing and 500,000 square feet of retail west of Interstate 880, five miles from the nearest BART station.

Environmentalists, some on the Fremont City Council and the officials at the nearby NUMMI auto plant had opposed the plan, saying it would create a traffic nightmare and wreck havoc on the adjacent wetlands.

But many merchants and public officials embraced the idea, hoping it would raise the city's national profile and boost the local economy.

The city has ordered its environmental consultant to stop working on the project and also canceled a Feb. 24 City Council meeting regarding the A's proposed move.

Thanks for continuing to post this stuff in here Transic. Yeah it's been fairly quiet in here the past few years but I think it will be valuable to keep this catalogue showing how things have unraveled... errrr, unfolded over time.

The latest buzz regarding the Beavers moving to the Rose Quarter sounds like a good news/bad news situation.

The good news is that the MC site sounds promising and is probably the frontrunner (although MP won't admit it publicly because he doesn't want to poison his backup location at Lents).

The bad news is that they are claiming that there is no way the site could be expanded to accomodate Major League Baseball. I can understand why they wouldn't want to do that if it is very costly to engineer that way from the start, but I don't think the footprint itself should be a dealbreaker.

As many of you know, the new 40,000 seat Twins stadium is being built on an eight acre parcel. That is relatively tiny. I believe MLB will continue to evolve to the point where a 25,000 to 30,000 seat stadium is not only economically viable, but preferable in order to maintain season ticket sales.

If the MC site can be engineered as follows:

-allow for an expansion to 25k-30k within an efficient (6-7 acre) footprint
-they can do it at a low cost
-they can do it in a way that accomodates Paul Allen's vision for the Rose Quarter (since he does have development rights)....

they would be insane not to at least consider it. Because the reality is that once the acreage is gobbled up by other buildings or facilities, it becomes far more difficult to fix.

And oh yeah... the A's and Marlins are both in deep doo doo right now, and MLB has no stalking horses to leverage them (unless they want to start talking about contraction again, yikes).