Oakland Athletics To Announce New MLB Stadium Location, Mayor Schaaf Favors Howard Terminal

The Oakland Athletics are studying locations for a new baseball stadium and will announce their choice – between Howard Terminal, the Laney College Ballfield, and The Oakland Coliseum – by the end of this year. Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf says she still favors the Howard Terminal location. This news (which I received from an extremely well-placed source) was received moments ago, today. The Athletics are, I was told, “surveying the sites and holding meetings with (Oakland) Mayor (Libby) Schaaf regularly.” Via text, I asked Mayor Schaaf if, indeed, she had met with the A's on the reported regular basis and if she still favored Howard Terminal, and her response to me was “yes and yes.” It's was known that Mayor Schaaf favored the Howard Terminal site, and a year ago, this blogger was informed that the Athletics were going to focus on that area near Jack London Square. Then, a change in A's management caused a slow-down and a slight refocusing of the effort: A's principal ownerr Jon Fisher took over for Lew Wolff, and Dave Kaval was selected to become the new president of the organization. Kaval, who has stadium development experience, communicated the team's intent to stay in and build a new stadium in Oakland, and also to (as he told the Bay Area News Group) “transform” a part of Oakland with a venue that has an urban focus. The stadium development process and challenge for the Oakland Athletics is, as follows: site cost, land preparation cost, infratructure configuration and cost, stadium design and construction, stadium financing, the environmental impact process, and government approvals. From that perspective, the Coliseum site scores out higher than the other two, where site cost, land preparation cost, and infratructure configuration score out better. But where Howard Terminal and The Laney College Ballfield excel is in one area that's not part of the direct stadium development process, but can drive it: asthetic appeal. Or, to put it bluntly, a new baseball stadium on the Oakland Waterfront would be just plain incredible – Oakland's admittedly 'me-too' response to AT&T Park at China Basin in San Francisco, where the SF Giants play. Stay tuned.

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