Santa Clara's ballpark boosters released new details Tuesday on their proposed $274.5 million stadium for the A's, but enthusiasm for the idea is waning among the city's elected officials as they learn more about the amount of public funding in the deal.
"If Pac Bell can be built without public funds," said council member John McLemore, referring to the Giants' privately funded stadium in San Francisco, "we definitely shouldn't have to put forward money."
According to the proposal, which assumes the dissolution of the Giants' territorial claim to the South Bay, the renamed Santa Clara A's would play in a 45,000-seat, open-air stadium next to the Great America theme park. The ballpark hasn't been designed, but boosters say it would be built along the lines of Denver's Coors Field, with a brick exterior to mimic old-style ballparks and a high-tech interior featuring wireless devices at every seat.
Under the proposal, a partial version of which was released by city officials last month but which was outlined in greater detail to the Mercury News by the booster group Tuesday, Santa Clara would be asked to:
Provide the 13-acre ballpark site on city land.
Contribute $55 million from the city's redevelopment agency for parking, road improvements and other infrastructure.
Contribute $12.5 million from Silicon Valley Power, the city-owned utility, for the stadium's electrical and lighting system, which would be repaid through a special annual utility charge against the stadium.
Potentially float an additional $82 million bond, which the team would repay through annual $8 million rental payments. The booster group maintains that if the city cannot issue such a bond, and city officials question their legal ability to do so, the money could be raised through a private loan. The remaining $125 million in upfront capital the booster group says it needs would come from a concessionaire and from the sale of naming rights and 20,000 seat charters at $3,000 apiece.
The city council is scheduled to get a formal presentation on the proposal next month, a majority of the seven council members said that they don't like what they've seen.
"I don't think we should spend public funds to build a baseball stadium," said council member Patrick Kolstad. "In my view, the tax money that is in the general fund, redevelopment agency fund or the Sports and Open Space Authority fund are all public funds."
That view was echoed by council members McLemore and Aldyth Parle. Mayor Judy Nadler has long opposed the stadium idea.
"With today's utility crisis, the last thing I'd want to do is take money from the utilities and make a loan of that amount to the baseball effort, when we should be taking that money to generate new power sources," McLemore said.
The boosters, known as the Santa Clara Stadium Association, maintain that all the public funds would be paid back over time through taxes and charges that wouldn't exist if the stadium weren't built. The proposal provides for payments, including property taxes, to the redevelopment agency in return for the land and the up-front cash.
Supporters on the council said money for the ballpark would be a wise investment.
"I believe that this use would not only promote city identity as the destination for business and play, but it would also create a healthy dynamic to support the existing theme park," said council member Jamie Matthews.
Members of the booster group said the amounts they have outlined would be the maximum they would seek from the public and that the A's would have to take responsibility should construction costs exceed current estimates.
"We think we can insulate the city from just those kind of risks," said Elliot Lepler, a Sunnyvale physician and member of the booster group.
The total cost estimate for the Santa Clara stadium is significantly below the $357 million the Giants say they spent on Pacific Bell Park. But the stadium group believes its estimates are on par with the average of modern ballparks across the country, and the Pacific Bell figure was inflated by the need to sink deep piles because of its unstable soil adjacent to San Francisco Bay.
With very little public money involved, the Giants assumed a much greater annual debt payment for Pacific Bell Park, about $18 million,. than the A's would in the form of their $8 million rental payments.
Persuading the city council to put money into the ballpark is just one of several major obstacles for the booster group, which has been in private talks with the A's for more than a year. Most significantly, Major League Baseball would have to agree to buy out or revoke the Giants' territorial rights to Santa Clara County, something commissioner Bud Selig has said he won't do.
A's owner Steve Schott appeared before the Santa Clara council in March to ask the city to hold off on building a parking garage on the proposed stadium site until he can get baseball officials to address the territorial issue.
The booster group believes baseball will act only after both Santa Clara and the A's make some form of commitment to a stadium.
Gary Hansen, a real estate broker and former Santa Clara councilman who is leading the booster group, said the A's have agreed to sign a non-binding memorandum by July 1 to pursue the Santa Clara deal but that the agreement would be contingent on baseball resolving the territorial rights issue.
The agreement, Hansen said, would forbid the A's from negotiating with any other community over a ballpark while they pursue the Santa Clara proposal.
But A's president Mike Crowley contradicted the booster group, saying the team wouldn't sign anything "unless there's an indication from baseball that there's even a possibility" of resolving the territorial issues. Crowley also was unwilling to say the public contribution would be capped at the amount the booster group now suggests.
"We need to look at it a little more closely to determine that," Crowley said.
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