November 7, 200619 yr I post this because I think it's relevant to our situation. - Privately funded - $300MM Why is our stadium now over $450M and they will announce one being built for $300M? It seems to me land outside of San Jose would be just as expensive if not more than our area. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Report: Athletics will build stadium in Fremont -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ESPN.com news services The Oakland Athletics are expected to announce next week they will build a new stadium in suburban Fremont, Calif., the San Francisco Chronicle reported Tuesday, citing sources close to negotiations for the deal. The newspaper 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. The Chronicle reported 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. 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." 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."
November 7, 200619 yr Freemont? :confused I'm only vaugly familiar with the Bay Area but I was under the impression that Freemont was not as populized as some of the other cities that this stadium could have been built around.
November 7, 200619 yr I wouldn't be fooled into thinking that stadium costs are higher in the Miami area than the SF bay area. As others have said, the roof makes it at least $100 million more expensive, but for everything else the costs are likely to be the same or higher for the A's. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong on this, but I also believe that the A's stadium has mostly two decks (like PNC Park), whereas the Marlins stadium would have three decks. The third deck adds cost but allows for more suites. One HUGE thing to look for is who is on the hook for cost overruns. For the A's it will almost certainly be the team, which means that they may end up shortc... errrr, value engineering things at a certain point to get the costs within budget. Lastly, I don't think the $300 million figure in the article is correct. At a minimum, it excludes land costs and infrastructure improvements.
November 10, 200619 yr Freemont? :confused I'm only vaugly familiar with the Bay Area but I was under the impression that Freemont was not as populized as some of the other cities that this stadium could have been built around. Reminds me of a city called Pompano Beach...
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