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Friday, January 16, 2009 | Modified: Tuesday, January 20, 2009, 12:01am

San Jose ready if A's plans change

Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal - by Katherine Conrad

SAN JOSE — If the Oakland Athletics’ plans for a new baseball stadium in Fremont fail, it could be a home run for San Jose.

One city official says that if A’s owner Lew Wolff comes looking for a home and Major League Baseball waives the San Francisco Giants’ turf rights to the city, San Jose could be ready in short order with a ballpark plan it shelved in 2006.

The city has orders, as well as a $22.8 million purse, to keep buying the remaining few acres of a 14-acre site between San Fernando Street and Park Avenue. The land could hold office buildings for nearby Adobe Systems Inc. as well as housing, or a ballpark if Wolff — who remains focused on Fremont — could be persuaded to move his Athletics to San Jose.

“We have direction to stay in the market and look for property to complete the acquisition south of San Fernando,” said Bill Ekern, director of project management for the city’s Redevelopment Agency. “We’re not aggressively trying to purchase — we’re waiting for the market to see if people want to sell.”

In 2006, the city proposed building an open-air, 45,000-seat professional sports stadium with the goal of drawing Major League Baseball to the city.

City planner Michael Rhoades, who handled the environmental impact report at the time, said that if the ballpark proposal “comes to life again,” the city would simply need to ensure that conditions such as traffic and noise levels haven’t changed, a process that would take two or three weeks.

If changes were found, the EIR would go out for another 45-day public review process. But Rhoades emphasized in an e-mail, “We believe the EIR is still accurate.”

Speculation has swirled about the team’s home following a December letter from Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig that said he would consider allowing the A’s to go to San Jose despite the San Francisco Giants holding territorial rights to the city. The remarks stirred San Jose’s dormant hopes that it could snag another professional sports franchise.

Even Mayor Chuck Reed, who said he bumped into A’s owner Wolff last week, expressed a flicker of hope.

“I’m still waiting for Lew Wolff to call me. He has my number,” Reed said. “I talked to him last week on my way to Rotary, and I verified that he had my number. He confirmed that he did.”

According to city officials, however, nothing has changed with regard to the city’s plans for the site. Ekern said staff has not been told to dust off the plans.

“We have not renewed contracts or moved discussions forward,” he said. “This is all speculation.”

Ekern said the city has assembled about 12 acres of the 14-acre site needed for a ballpark. Under direction from the council, the staff continues to buy the remaining industrial properties for housing or corporate expansion.

“We’ve had conversations with corporate users who are interested in the area,” he said, alluding to Adobe Systems’ long-known plans to expand its headquarters.

Asked whether San Jose was back on the table, Wolff’s response was short.

“No,” he said. “Until we have exhausted our options in Fremont, our commitment is to Fremont.”

Wolff’s son Keith, who is handling the negotiations in Fremont, said this week he is “100 percent focused on Fremont.” He, too, added, that if for whatever reason the Alameda County city doesn’t work, then San Jose is “potentially another location.”

The A’s are looking at two sites in Alameda County’s southernmost city, one at Pacific Union along Interstate 880 and the other in the Warm Springs district of Fremont near a planned BART station.

But if the Wolffs are considering a move to a Warm Springs site, they have not told Fremont city officials.

Daren Fields, the city’s economic development director, said team officials have yet to send a letter announcing a change in plans. At present, he said, the preferred site remains the original 226-acre area west of I-880, where the Wolffs drafted plans to build a $400 million, 32,000-seat ballpark next to a development of 3,100 housing units and 540,000-square-foot retail center.

The benefits of the Pacific Commons site, however, have faded slightly because of the market meltdown as well as concerns from a Pacific Commons landowner, Catellus Development, about traffic congestion.

Keith Wolff said the passage of the 1/8-cent BART tax by Santa Clara County voters in November to bring the heavy rail system south prompted him to consider another site, a 36-acre parcel a mile east next to the future Warm Springs BART station.

“We’re looking at both options,” he said. “Both sites would work very well for us. It is expensive, but it’s worth the investment. This project would create tens of thousands of construction jobs in a time when they’re really needed.”

The new site addresses the biggest criticism about Pacific Commons: lack of access to public transportation and the exacerbation of an already congested I-880.

Despite the fact that San Jose is not currently the frontrunner, Reed said he welcomes the prospect of the A’s building their new home in Fremont.

“I’d love to have the A’s in Fremont across the border,” he said, adding that obviously, “it would be an even bigger plus to have them in San Jose. We have a site; we don’t have a team.”

Katherine Conrad can be reached at 408.299.1820 or kconrad@bizjournals.com. David Goll contributed to this story.