OAKLAND — Just hours after the city publicly unveiled its terms Friday for possibly moving along the Oakland A’s plan to build a waterfront ballpark and village at Howard Terminal, the team’s president bluntly rejected them.
“We have some really big pieces here that are still outstanding, and while we’re always open to continuing to negotiate, we’re not in a position where this can work right now,” A’s President Dave Kaval told this news organization.
“A ‘yes’ vote on the term sheet that was proposed today, from our perspective, is a ‘no’ vote on the project,” he added.
Kaval’s refusal to accept the city’s proposed development agreement as a compromise sets up a showdown atmosphere for Tuesday’s meeting of the Oakland City Council, which is scheduled to consider voting on the A’s non-binding term sheet for financing their proposed $12 billion project. It also signals that the team is ready to ratchet up its threat to leave for another city — possibly Las Vegas — if Oakland doesn’t change its tune.
Earlier Friday, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf released a written statement that strongly suggested both sides are proceeding on the same path.
“The Term Sheet put forth by city staff moves us one step closer to making the vision of a world-class ballpark a reality,” Schaaf said. “We appreciate the A’s working with us to reach consensus on nearly all financial terms as well as continue to problem-solve between now and approval of a binding development agreement.”
Schaaf was unavailable to comment later about Kaval’s contradictory perspective on where the two sides stand.
The A’s want to build a 35,000-seat ballpark and as many as 3,000 residential units, 1.5 million square feet of office space, 270,000 square feet of mixed retail, a 3,500-seat performance theater, 400 hotel rooms and about 18 acres of parks and open space at Howard Terminal, which is part of the Port of Oakland not too far from Jack London Square.
City staff has recommended that the council at least endorse a tentative development agreement while the two sides continue to negotiate their respective financial obligations. But the council cannot approve that agreement unless the A’s get on board.
In its report, the city made it clear it still wants the A’s to provide a significant amount of affordable housing in its development plans as well as millions of dollars’ worth of other community benefits. The report also asserts the city is willing to form only one of the two tax assessment districts the A’s requested to finance the infrastructure needed for the project and better access to it.
“There’s no specifics on who pays for all this off-site infrastructure, which is almost $400 million — so we have a huge gap there,” Kaval said Friday. “It’s really concerning that we’ve gotten this far in the project and we still have that, and there are still discussions of us paying for overages and things of that nature. So we’re really far apart there.”
The city’s goal, as stated in the report it released Friday, is “to ensure that any final deal will not put the City’s or County’s General Funds at risk, unlike the bonds that had been issued to renovate the Coliseum on behalf of the Raiders.”
As part of its terms, the city says at least 15% of the 3,000 homes the A’s want to build should be affordable and the team should shell out enough impact fees so the city can finance construction of 450 affordable homes elsewhere.
City and state laws require housing developers to include affordable units or pay fees toward building them elsewhere. The A’s have asked the city to waive that mandate.
The A’s contend the city should fund the affordable homes with the millions of dollars it’ll get by forming two tax assessment districts to pay for streets, sidewalks, pedestrian bridges and other infrastructure needed to support the ballpark/village development.
Although the two sides are far apart on affordable housing and other community benefits, they both made concessions on the issue of how long the A’s should commit to staying in Oakland if they get their ballpark. The city initially sought a 45-year commitment, and the A’s promised only 20 years, but Kaval earlier this week said the team would stay at least 30, and the city’s Friday report accepted at least a 25-year commitment.
But that might not be enough for Kaval.
“We made that big concession, but the threshold issue for us that has to be resolved is the off-site infrastructure,” Kaval said. “We just don’t think it makes sense for the A’s to be paying for all the infrastructure miles from the stadium that is really deferred maintenance on the city unrelated to our project. The reality is that the city is going to have to do that work anyway. So to burden our project with all those things is really not appropriate.”
But others argue the team has a financial obligation to lessen any potential negative impacts its project could spawn on surrounding neighborhoods.
In an op-ed for this news organization, Evelyn Lee, president of the board of the Oakland Asian Cultural Center, wrote that the “biggest threat specific to Chinatown, less than a mile from the proposed ballpark, is traffic and parking. Stadium traffic to and from home games — on more than one out of five days a year — could choke off Chinatown’s streets and stifle its businesses.”
And Vice Mayor Rebecca Kaplan pointed out in a letter to colleagues that “everyone must recognize the historic harm to communities, disproportionately Black communities, in West Oakland from transportation and infrastructure projects over many decades, which demolished existing communities, undermined Black-owned businesses and homes, worsened pedestrian safety, and cut apart community connections”.
Companies located at the port near Howard Terminal, meanwhile have opposed the waterfront proposal, saying it would disrupt their operations.
Kaval has maintained — with many “Howard Terminal or bust” exclamations — that if the City Council does not share the team’s “vision” for Howard Terminal and approve an agreement that mostly aligns with terms the team revealed in April, the A’s will search for a ballpark in another city. Building a new one at the Coliseum where the team now plays “is not viable,” Kaval has insisted.
Kaval has said the team is pursuing a “parallel path” to build the new ballpark either in Oakland or Las Vegas. Team officials have visited Las Vegas several times already and will be taking another trip the day after the City Council’s vote.
Even if the council and the A’s reach a deal, a development agreement can’t be finalized until an environmental impact report on the project is approved later this year or early next.
Check back for updates on this developing story.
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