Reports: Athletics will build stadium in Fremont

[Dback Jon]

The Oakland Athletics are expected to announce next week they will build a new stadium in suburban Fremont, Calif., the San Francisco Chronicle and San Jose Mercury News reported Tuesday, citing sources close to negotiations for the deal.

Tale of Two Cities
The city of Fremont is on the verge of stealing the A's from Oakland, according to reports. Though the population is about half that of Oakland, the people of Fremont have a little extra cash to throw around on average. A look at the numbers:
Category Oakland Fremont
Population -- 2003 398,844 204,525
Land area (square miles) -- 2000 56 77
White persons -- 2000 31.3% 47.7%
African Americans -- 2000 35.7% 3.1%
Asians -- 2000 15.2% 37.0%
Hispanics -- 2000 21.9% 13.5%
Median household income -- 1999 $40,055 $76,579
Per capita income -- 1999 $21,936 $31,411
Below poverty line -- 1999 19.4% 5.4%
Source -- U.S. Census Bureau

The newspapers reported the team wants to acquire a 143-acre site near the former Baylands Raceway Park and build a privately-funded 36,000-seat ballpark at an estimated cost of $300 million. The property is currently owned by the city of Fremont and is leased to high-tech firm Cisco Systems.

Athletics managing partner Lew Wolff and baseball commissioner Bud Selig -- who were fraternity brothers at the University of Wisconsin -- are expected to make the announcement at a news conference in the Bay Area next Tuesday, according to the reports.

A's spokesman Jim Young told the Chronicle he would not confirm the timing or content of the announcement. He did tell the newspaper "From an organizational standpoint, we are getting closer to announcing some concrete plans that will significantly impact the future of the A's in the Bay Area and plans that the owner has been working very hard on for more than two years."

Fremont is about 27 miles from Oakland and 18 miles from San Jose. Major League Baseball has always recognized San Jose as part of the San Francisco Giants' market under its territory rules, but the Fremont site is just short of the Santa Clara County line and would not trigger a territorial dispute.

During the American League Championship Series, Selig said he didn't have a problem with the A's moving to Fremont because "that's their territory."

Fremont is located on the Southeast side of San Francisco Bay, and closer to San Jose than to Oakland.
The Athletics are in a year-to-year lease at McAfee Coliseum through 2010, with a team option to renew on a year-to-year basis through 2013, the newspaper reported. The team has called the Coliseum home since moving to Oakland in 1968, but has not been happy with the stadium since it was refurbished to accommodate the return of the NFL's Oakland Raiders from Los Angeles.

This past season, the A's didn't sell tickets for the Coliseum's upper deck and covered those seats with a green tarp.

Oakland City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente said he wasn't surprised by the development, and told the newspaper it was unlikely the city would get into a bidding war to keep the A's in the city limits.

"Teams and team owners look for the best deals for themselves, and that's understandable,'' he told the Chronicle. "There's nothing we can do about it.''


Outgoing Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown told the newspaper he had spoken with Wolff several times, but that Fremont had a crucial advantage on Oakland: "Fremont has the land."

Wolff has asked Fremont staff members about housing and land-use issues near the proposed site adjacent to Interstate-880, city officials told the Mercury News. But the A's have not yet filed a development application with the city, and Fremont will not negotiate terms of the deal until that happens.

"The city doesn't have a project yet," Councilmember Anu Natarajan told the Mercury News. "There cannot be one because we don't have an application yet."

Fremont Vice Mayor Steve Cho said he is open-minded to the idea, but warned that city taxpayers should not have to pay for any part of the new stadium.

"It sounds like something that should work out for the city," Cho told the Mercury News. "But the devil is in the details."

 

[Russ Smith]

It's less than 10 minutes from where I work in Fremont currently.

The problem with all the land in that area is proximity to the Fremont Forebay, if you build too close to it the water table is extremely high. We were on one side of 880 and we used to have floor tiles coming up in our labs all the time, when you looked underneath there was a pile of salt, it's the water table from the San Francisco bay the water comes up on high tides and leaves the salt behind.

We moved across to the other side of 880 and don't have the problem, so they need to be quite sure about where they build it or they're going to have drainage issues.

Traffic is going to suck too if it goes where they're saying, 880 and 680 are the only adjacent freeways and both would require a ton of traffic getting off to go through office and industrial areas.

But it would be a lot closer to where i live.

 

[abomb]

Traffic is going to suck too if it goes where they're saying, 880 and 680 are the only adjacent freeways and both would require a ton of traffic getting off to go through office and industrial areas.

But it would be a lot closer to where i live.

Does the BART even get close to that area?

 

[Russ Smith]

Does the BART even get close to that area?

Bart goes to Fremont, but it stops North of where this is supposed to be going. There's a proposal to extend BART to Warm Springs which has a lot of businesses and would be 5-10 minutes from the stadium. Presumably if they knew the stadium was going there they'd put a stop there too like they have at the Oakland Coliseum now.

But as it exists now, you couldn't take BART. From what I found online it's 5 minutes from the current Fremont Bart Station, and 2 miles from the proposed location at Warm Springs. But the 5 miles is in an area that would have DENSE city traffic so we're talking 3-4 times as long by bus as it would be from Warm Springs. And I have to assume they'd find a way to build a station at the new stadium, not doing so would seem stupid.


Warm Springs area is right where I work and it's been under construction on and around 880 for the last year and due to be that way for quite a while longer. Adding lanes, redoing exits and on ramps etc. They'd have to be done with all that before the A's moved. The area for the stadium is further North called Fremont Commons that's where I have my closest Washington Mutual bank to my work now. Cisco owns it, their growth stalled, so now they're trying to cut a deal with the A's.

 

[Stallion]

Hey, I was born in Fremont. Go A's.

 

[AZ Shocker]

36,000 seats? That is tiny.

 

[Diamondback Jay]

The A's reportedly will change their name to the Silicon Valley A's.

 

[coyoteshockeyfan]

The A's reportedly will change their name to the Silicon Valley A's.

You're joking... right?

 

[Diamondback Jay]

I wish I was.

That's the big rumor, that they're going to change their name to either Fremont A's or Silicon Valley A's, with Silicon Valley likely to get the nod.

They should really just call them San Jose A's or stick with Oakland.. Silicon Valley A's sounds outright ******** and 75 percent of non-Californians would have no damned clue where Fremont is.

 

[DieHardFromMO]

I wish I was.

That's the big rumor, that they're going to change their name to either Fremont A's or Silicon Valley A's, with Silicon Valley likely to get the nod.

They should really just call them San Jose A's or stick with Oakland.. Silicon Valley A's sounds outright ******** and 75 percent of non-Californians would have no damned clue where Fremont is.

I confess I have never heard of Fremont California prior to this. The name Silicon Valley A's is ignorant. I guess the Angels gave up their rights to the name California for baseball purposes so maybe they can call themselves the California A's.

 

[Stallion]

maybe they can call themselves the California A's.

There you go. I was thinking that too.

Either that or the Los Angeles A's of Fremont.