Agency paves way for Oakland Athletics’ $12 billion baseball plan

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A California agency cleared the way Thursday for the Oakland Athletics to continue planning for a $12 billion waterfront baseball stadium project.

The San Francisco Bay Area Conservation and Development Commission voted 23 to 2 to reclassify a 56-acre terminal at the Port of Oakland as a mixed-use area where a new ballpark could be built. The vote is the first in a series of legal hurdles the team would have to clear before getting permission to launch the project.

The commission followed the recommendation of its staff, who found that the team had demonstrated that removing the terminal from port use “would not impair the region’s ability to handle projected freight growth”.

The A’s are the last remaining professional franchise in Oakland after the NBA’s Golden State Warriors moved to San Francisco and the NFL’s Raiders to Las Vegas in recent years. The defections are weighing heavily on the Bay Area city of about 400,000 residents, some of whom pleaded with the commission on Thursday to work harder to retain the team and the jobs that come with it.

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf said the approval brought the city closer to “that bold vision into a beautiful reality and to keeping our A’s rooted in Oakland for generations to come.”

“Our city has always been overlooked for major economic development, but today that Oakland story is changing,” she said in a statement.

The two commissioners and members of the public who objected to no longer ranking Howard Terminal for port priority questioned whether the Port of Oakland would have room to expand as shipping traffic increased if a real estate development massive was within it.

Erin Wright, a third-generation longshoreman and member of ILWU Local 10, said the shipping community opposes the project because it would interfere with the shipping and receiving of goods.

“Anyone with a working brain knows that building houses in an industrial area is going to have a huge negative impact on all operations and cause our seaports to slow down and deteriorate,” he said.

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“Our port is busier than it has been since I was 33 years old. We need (Howard Terminal) for operations. We use it, we use it every day,” he added.

Last year, the Oakland City Council approved preliminary terms for the project, but A’s chairman Dave Kaval said the financial terms weren’t working for the team. Kaval said the team is proceeding with “parallel paths,” planning for new ballparks in Oakland and Las Vegas.

The top Minor League A team, the Las Vegas Aviators, has been playing since April 2019 in a new stadium several miles northwest of the Strip. It has 8,196 seats and 22 air-conditioned suites, but is not considered suitable for long-term use by A’s.

The Triple A team reported attracting an average of 6,590 fans during the 2021 season. The A’s, by comparison, attracted noticeably few fans at Oakland’s RingCentral Coliseum, which seats more than 63,000.

In Las Vegas, local media have since 2021 tracked A-team executive visits and reported, sometimes citing unnamed sources, the team’s interest in several properties on or near the Las Vegas Strip. .

The T-Mobile Arena, home to the NHL’s Vegas Golden Knights since 2017, and Allegiant Stadium, a 65,000-seat dome, are within walking distance of the Strip resorts. The NFL’s Las Vegas Raiders moved from Oakland in 2020 and play at Allegiant Stadium.

A’s executives focused on two sites and met with the owners of the Tropicana Las Vegas, an aging icon built in 1957 and namesake of a key Las Vegas Boulevard intersection, according to local media.

In Oakland, A’s proposal includes a privately-funded 35,000-seat ballpark at the Howard Terminal, which is currently used as overflow parking for containers and trucks. The project would also include 3,000 residential units, office and retail space, hotel rooms and an indoor performance center.

The team’s lease at the aging RingCentral Coliseum runs through 2024. The league has said rebuilding at the current location is not a viable option. In May, Major League Baseball asked the Oakland brass to explore relocation options if no rough deal could be reached.

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Associated Press writer Ken Ritter in Las Vegas contributed to this report.