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A's owner proposes new baseball stadium with housing, BART

By Guy Ashley
CONTRA COSTA TIMES



OAKLAND - Oakland A's owner Lew Wolff this morning unveiled his vision for a new A's ballpark on industrial land near McAfee Coliseum, describing a compact stadium with its own hotel or condominiums that would be served by its own BART station.

But Wolff admitted that seeing the project through will be tall order requiring political will to transform up to 90 acres of gritty industrial land north of the Coliseum, property now in the hands of dozens of private owners.

"The challenges are huge," Wolff told commissioners of the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Authority.

Wolff offered the commission detailed drawings of his vision of a "ballpark village" that would transform a swath of land off Interstate 880 between 66th Avenue and High Street.

One scenario puts the ballpark on the southeast side of the project area, surrounded by retail complexes with outdoor plazas. The northern half of the 90-acre plot would be devoted to housing developments to help finance the ballpark project -- although Wolff said if that proved too onerous he would seek to build housing elsewhere in Oakland or Alameda County.

A depiction of the ballpark shows a compact stadium with about 35,000 seats, a massive high-tech scoreboard and a towering hotel or condominium project looming over the left-center alleyway.

The suggested ballpark location would be within walking distance of the existing Coliseum complex and the thousands of parking spaces it offers, Wolff said. He said the stadium project would require a new BART station between the Fruitvale and Coliseum stations to transport fans to and from games.

Wolff offered no cost estimates for his project, other than to confirm in passing that the ballpark itself would cost in the range of $400 million.

Oakland and Alameda County officials lauded Wolff for his proposal, and said they would immediately begin efforts to negotiate with property owners to acquire the land coveted by the A's.

"It's an incredible vision for how the stadium can in fact change an area that needs to be changed," said Oakland City Councilman Larry Reid, whose district includes the Coliseum and proposed ballpark site.

Wolff told the Coliseum panel he is hopeful the project's many community benefits would help create a willingness among property owners to relocate their businesses to make way for a stadium. He took pains to explain that the A's weren't asking city and county leaders to bulldoze businesses against their will.

"If we're talking about lawsuits for the rest of our lives, life's too short for that," he said, adding that the A's want only to take part in "a negotiation, not an attack on property owners."

Reid said he would work to see that property owners are compensated fairly and, if possible, relocated elsewhere within Oakland if they agree to move.

But he also said he would support using the city's powers of eminent domain if necessary to gain control of properties for the project.

"I'm willing to put my political career on the line to make this stadium a reality," he said.

Lew forgot to include the next slide in his presentation:

Will be wild if the awnings are in play.

quote:

Originally posted by Maury:
Will be wild if the awnings are in play.

Are those awnings or seats?

When do they expect to get that built? Unless it is in the next couple of years they better switch that jersey on Chavez cuz he won't be in an Oakland one for long!

Couple of comments...

On the triangular seating section...I want to sit in the single seat at the top.

What's the circular piece in the yellow? If it's a slide, my thoughts on Wolff have dropped.

Nice park! It is just different enough to be interesting.....

I really like the A's and would like for something good to happen for them.

Maybe its in Oakland, but hopefully in Portland!

quote:

Originally posted by Maury:
What's the circular piece in the yellow?

I think it's a fountain, but it looks like it could easily be transformed into a clown's mouth.

Maybe it's a spiral ramp for people to go on to get a different view of the game, sort of along the idea of the spiral ramps at PNC.

Oh how I wish we were looking at a ballpark being built here in Portland. Will that day ever come?

You know, this ballpark/condo idea has some real possibilities. Either a prospective owner could include condos in the building of the park to offset costs of running the franchise, like Wolf is doing. Or, maybe, a construction company could be convinced to build the park in exchange for the right to own and operate the condos attached to it - sort of like the deal that pdx struck in its exchange of developable land for the construction of the light rail line to the airport. If that were the case, we'd have a park ready and waiting with little or no tax payer money involved.