Matt Holliday had better love Mount Davis: The San Jose Mercury News reports this morning that the ongoing economic cataclysm could put the kibosh on the Oakland A’s plans for a new stadium in Fremont, at least for now.
As I reported for BP last year, A’s owner Lew Wolff’s plan for a 30,000-seat stadium in the East Bay city of Fremont relied on a complicated land-for-stadium swap: Essentially, Wolff would get the right to develop land around the ballpark as condos, and use the proceeds to pay off his $400-million-or-so stadium bill. Unfortunately, right now in California you can get condos free with your Happy Meal, so Wolff has had to revamp his plan: Now, he says, he’ll use naming-rights, concessions, and parking revenues to fund the stadium, while waiting for the housing market to pick up.
Not to disparage the word of a trusted real-estate magnate, but: fat chance. Cisco has already announced plans to buy the naming rights to a Fremont stadium, for $4 million a year - that’s enough to pay off at most $60 million in stadium costs, and probably less given today’s extortionate interest rates. That would leave something on the order of $25 million a year to come out of concessions and parking money - new concessions and parking money, if the A’s don’t want to take a loss on what they’re currently bringing in at the newly de-corporatized Oakland Coliseum. Given that stadiums almost never pay their own way with increased revenues, Wolff would almost certainly have to take losses for a few years in hopes that the real-estate bubble could eventually be reinflated, which seems like a risky gambit.
Wolff, as you might expect, kept a happy face on all this, telling the Merc News that he doesn’t expect to have to delay plans for a Fremont stadium, which at last word he was still hoping to open by 2011. “The best building I’ve done has been in times when I shouldn’t be building,” said Wolff. “We could easily put our plans on hold for two years, but that is the furthest thing from our minds.” Paraleipsis, anyone?
(For fans of football and the other football, the economic mess is also expected to throw a wrench into the planned San Francisco 49ers and San Jose Earthquakes stadiums; I have a bit more on this at fieldofschemes.com.)
Though it would seem that the best time to build a stadium is when there is as little demand for construction workers as possible. If he can afford to wait out the housing problems, he could probably get the stadium built for cheaper then if he waits until the market improves. By the time you can see a bubble, it's usually to late to make any money.
I too have been skeptical of this Fremont deal all along--long before the credit crunch took hold. As far as I know, there is no infrastructure there--no roads, no water, etc. More importantly, there is no mass transit access. I can only imagine the great joy of the commuters along 880 in Fremont on game days, not to mention the fans themselves. A BART spur? Light rail? How many more billions would that cost?
Given the transit access, the Oakland Coliseum is just about ideally located. And there's nothing wrong with the facility that razing Mount Davis couldn't fix. If a new structure must be built (and please, not with my tax dollars), then it seems most reasonable to build it on the existing site.
Considering I live about a mile and a half from the proposed site, let me help out...I really don't understand the worry about the roads and traffic access...There is an exit north and another just south of the site that runs directly onto 880 or through a major thoroughfare onto 680. Right now the southern exit gets very little traffic as there are not many businesses nearby. By next summer that interchange, along with the HOV lanes, will be finished. They just recently finished a major big box retail/restaurant shopping center north of the site.
As far as transit access...I have sat after the game for 30 minutes trying to cross the bridge to the Oakland BART station. It doesn't really help to have mass transit when you have a single narrow walkway funneling the commuters. How many times have you had to wait to get onto the bridge, trudge like cattle across it, then get held back because there were too many people on the platform? I would be surprised if Wolff doesn't continue as planned. Guessing at housing demand in 2011-2012 is a fool's game (although I'm sure Nate Silver would try).
I concur. I pass by both sites on my way to work every day. There are no traffic problems off 880 in Oakland due to the Coliseum and there'd be few here. Even if there were, people discuss it as though it would be a major traffic inconvenience 24 hours a day that would affect the morning commute and everything else. People get to the park at all different times so arriving is not an issue and similarly I don't think anyone is concerned that traffic is going to get congested at 10 PM or on weekends. There is just no existing traffic to have this add to the problem at those times. So, basically, the only concern is weekday day games letting out, which is an instance that would occur maybe 12 times a year for maybe an hour. 12 hours a year. Is that something people are really worried about? If it is that big of a problem, you can have the games start at 12 instead of 1 so that fans are out by 3, before the traffic starts. Sheesh.
From everyone local I've talked to (I'm on the other coast, though I've spent a lot of time in the Bay Area), the concern is about people arriving for weeknight games, which would take place during the evening rush. I-880 is already just about impassable at that time, so even adding a bunch of cars with staggered arrival times could be a big problem - not to mention that A's fans would have to factor in an hour of sitting in traffic en route to the game.
As for Wolff gambling on the housing market rebounding, that's certainly possible. I wonder, though, if he'll find any bankers willing to go along with him in this climate - naming rights + concessions + parking isn't a ton of collateral to float a half-billion-dollar loan on.
The traffic in that area has historically been awful, particularly southbound, because I-880 used to go from four lanes each direction in Fremont down to just two lanes just across the county line in San Jose, so traffic would always back up right around the proposed ballpark area.
That whole area just south of the ballpark area has been one big construction project for the last several years, to widen the freeway, improve the overpasses/exchanges, add carpool lanes, etc. That project is almost over now, as the southbound carpool lane just opened up this week.
So while traffic has always been awful in the past, it should start improving considerably, oh, just about right now.
Also, a vote on a sales tax increase to extend BART to Santa Clara County, which would put a new station a little over a mile from the proposed stadium, looks like it is barely passing.
So the news is getting better on the transportation front, just as it's getting worse on the funding part.
Interesting. That sounds like it'd greatly help out the traffic coming northbound from the San Jose side -- as you point out, historically the long stretch from 101 all the way up almost to Decoto Road has been awful. Glad to hear they're finally getting that opened up.
I'd be coming from the north, though, so my big concern is the southbound Mowry/Stevenson/Auto Mall stretch. Not all of that is undergoing substantial widening, and it's already a nightmare at rush hour.
(I'm also puzzled by the commenter who says that there is no traffic impact by the Coliseum. In my experience there's a definite effect in the hour or so before any game or high-attendance concert event. I definitely agree that there is not enough capacity at the existing Coliseum BART station for the after-game flood, though.)
I admit I'm never on 880 there 5-7 before a game, but coming home from work at about 4 when Thursday day games have let out, they only slow down traffic minimally. Since that is all at one time, I assumed it was less likely to impact traffic when people are showing up at their leisure. Furthermore, the amount of people driving into the game at one time is not that heavy. As a season ticket holder for 8 years the longest I have *ever* waited to drive into a game was about 1 minute and there is no traffic, none, on the smaller streets right outside the coliseum where people have to drive to get in. So it is very difficult to believe a few extra cars on 880 at one time is making a difference. I could be wrong since I'm not out there but I'd think you are either blaming normal traffic patterns on the game or there is a flood of traffic right at 7:00 to get in (I never arrive that late). Even so, traffic should be down by 7 and are we really worried about extra cars at that time? I'd think the 5:00 rush hour traffic is more the issue.
Try driving from South bound on 880 through Hayward and Union City on any weeknight at around 6PM, then say the traffic effect would be minimal. The traffic is beyond bad right now and would be MUCH worse with a baseball game starting at 7PM, which is when the majority of games are played.
Clearly this stadium is seeming more and more like a pipedream. The A's best option may be that the Raiders lease is up in 2010. If for some reason the Raiders move or Al Davis dies, the current site may once again be a very viable option. It certainly would be much cheaper, especially if they just considered a renovation on the current facility.
I don't think a comparison to the current Coliseum traffic situation is accurate. There are way fewer drivers in the current situation at the Coliseum because A) a good chunk of them take mass transit (creating the bottleneck on the BART bridge) and B) the crowds in Oakland are usually in the 15,000-25,000 range. In Fremont, nearly everyone would be driving, and there would likely be sellout crowds every night, at least for the first few years. So you're looking at double the number of cars, easily.
I didn't say it would be the same, but as long as you bring it up, there are zero problems now. So 0*2=0.
I think to really know accurately, you need to know the number of cars that travel 880 north and south between 5 and 7 and then see how many more cars to add onto that. I'd say an optimistic projection would be 5000 when you count the number of fans coming from other directions, like 680 and the surrounding areas, and the average number of people who travel together, which I'd posit could be as high as 3.5. So 2,500 cars in each direction over two hours, mostly with access to the carpool lane--seems like it might not be that many.
Fremont doesn't fall into your "field of schemes" category, Neil, as I think you realize. Wolff has been clever to this point about bartering for the land and building the stadium as close to Santa Clara county as he can get it, right on the edge of the Magowan's fiefdom (which is a ridiculous MLB decision, btw).
I went to a lot of old stadia (the Vet, Shea, Memorial Park, Candlestick) and I'd argue that what Oakland has is the single worst park in baseball since... Jarry Park? The place is a crypt. For the love of baseball and everyone in the Bay Area, this thing *needs* to get built.
I went to the Coliseum quite a bit in the pre-Mount Davis days, and actually kind of liked it - the seats behind first and third are way too far from the action, but it's relatively low in height, and I've yet to find a really awful seat in the place. I always used to described it as "Shea Stadium after someone sat on it." (And, er, meant it as a compliment, more or less.)
Would a smaller, better-designed park in Fremont be better for fans? It would be more expensive (thanks to ticket scarcity), and harder to get to (from the East Bay, though not from the Valley), but a better place to see a game once you got there. It's actually a bit like the debate Mets fans are having right now about Citi Field: Should they be happy to finally get a ballpark with modern amenities, or worried about games losing their regular-Joe feel to a smaller, more corporate crowd?
I'm an A's season ticket holder, and I live just a short drive from the Coliseum, so moving to Fremont will certainly inconvenience me. But if I'm Lew Wolff, the Fremont move is a no-brainer. I'd do it in a heartbeat. If I can't move to San Jose, this is the next best thing.
The A's probably don't care if the crowd is more corporate. In fact, that's the whole point of moving to Fremont--it's way way closer to where all the corporations are.
Basically, what the A's are doing is keeping the Alameda County fans, and swapping the Contra Costa County fans for Santa Clara county fans. And when you compare the business revenues between the traded counties, the trade is a no-brainer. Just to take one statistic: In 2003, Santa Clara County businesses generated $55 billion in payroll, while Contra Costa businesses generated just $15 billion.
And that's not counting all the venture capital money that lives just across the Dumbarton Bridge in Palo Alto (San Mateo County). I've worked in high tech in all of these counties--met with many of the big businesses and VCs around here, seen the differences in affluence and culture between Silicon Valley and the Oakland/Contra Costa area. To me, it's flat-out obvious that the Fremont location will create access to way, way more money than being in Oakland.
I won't miss the Coliseum, because I already miss it, and have already mourned it. It was a lovely, pleasant stadium before, but Mount Davis was and is a travesty.
Yeah, this is the part that doesn't seem to get quite as much attention as it should. The move to Fremont isn't about Fremont: it's about turning the team into the San Jose A's (of Fremont). Oakland's population is just over 400k people. San Jose's is more than twice that. Ken's point about corporate access is spot on, too -- right now the Giants get almost all of the "dot-com perks" traffic.
(The 49ers proposed move similarly isn't about Santa Clara per se; it's about becoming the San Jose and Silicon Valley team.)
I imagine they'd also be writing off the (relatively small) fan base that currently BARTs in from San Francisco. That trip is pretty easy now, but would become quite a bit more tedious with a relocation that far south.
The coliseum is affordable and usually provides a good product (a team that wins), which is more than can be said for the nice ballpark on the other side of the bay. The food is good and the field is nice when football isn't on. The team needs the money is the only real reason I want them to move.
It's not going to be that much money if they're pledging all the new revenues to pay off the stadium bonds. And anyway, how much they're willing to spend on payroll depends on marginal revenue, not base revenue, and that's not going to change dramatically compared to the big markets. How many new stadiums later, and it's still the NY, LA, and Boston teams as the big spenders?
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Though it would seem that the best time to build a stadium is when there is as little demand for construction workers as possible. If he can afford to wait out the housing problems, he could probably get the stadium built for cheaper then if he waits until the market improves. By the time you can see a bubble, it's usually to late to make any money.