The proposed Oakland A’s waterfront ballpark and village at Howard Terminal hit a new roadblock this week.
The Alameda County Board of Supervisors announced it’s not ready to deliver a vote next month critical to the project’s financing, according to reporting by The Mercury News.
The plan has been fraught from the start. The team has threatened to leave Oakland if it can’t move to the Port of Oakland’s Howard Terminal in three years when the lease to play in the Coliseum expires.
The county’s Board of Supervisors was asked earlier this spring to join in forming an infrastructure financing district that would use a portion of property tax growth revenue to pay for the improvements needed to prepare the Howard Terminal site for development.
Oakland officials have said that without the county’s tax share, there wouldn’t be enough funding to cover the infrastructure costs.
But county leaders have been hesitant about the proposition. In June supervisors said they wanted staff to further explore the financial terms being negotiated between the city and the A’s. In that meeting they suggested September might be the earliest they would vote on the matter.
And now that vote has been delayed, with gloomy prospects for rescheduling.
In a letter sent to the county on Friday, City Administrator Edward Reiskin emphasized that the city needs the county on its team to see this plan come to fruition.
"In order for the City and Port to complete negotiations with the A’s and bring forward a package of final documents, including the Final EIR, for consideration by the Council and Port Board, it is essential that all parties have an understanding of the County’s intentions with regards to the IFD," Reiskin wrote. "The County’s participation in the IFD will be key to the viability of the project’s overall financial plan."
The environmental impact report for the project is still in progress and shouldn’t hold up the decision of what would be a non-binding "declaration of the County’s intent to contribute its share of the incremental property taxes that will be generated from development of the Waterfront Ballpark District at Howard Terminal," said Reiskin.
In all other respects, progress is going ahead unabated. Reiskin pointed out that the A’s staff, attorneys and consultants have met regularly since July 20 with the city to discuss plans, cost estimates and progress in the final environmental impact report. Meanwhile, the A’s have continued to complete applications and pay all the required fees to move the project forward.
In April, the A’s asked the city to create two infrastructure financing districts.
One would finance improvements such as sidewalks, streets and soil cleanup to prep the 55-acre Howard Terminal site for the ballpark and a village of 3,000 homes, offices, hotels, a performing arts center, open space and parks.
The other district, which would include a 1 1/2-mile area near the terminal including Jack London Square, would finance off-site improvements such as pedestrian bridges and traffic upgrades to make it easier for A’s fans and others to reach the site.
From the two tax districts, the A’s aimed to be reimbursed $855 million in bond money over 45 years for all the infrastructure work they would pay upfront.
Although city officials agreed to create a district for the Howard Terminal site, they rejected the idea of creating a second one, saying it would be fiscally irresponsible since it wouldn’t be directly related to the project.
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