Five years since signing a lease agreement with the hope of relocating the Oakland A's to a new ballpark in downtown San Jose, the City Council is poised to renew the land-holding deal for another seven years. Still, prospects of the team moving 40 miles south remain uncertain.
Because the San Francisco Giants possess territorial rights to the South Bay, Major League Baseball hasn’t approved the move. Sick of waiting, and worried about losing out on potential economic development opportunity, the city filed a lawsuit against MLB challenging its antitrust exemption.
Regardless, the council on Tuesday will consider a lease option that would cost the A’s $100,000 over the next four years to hold the land, with three one-year extensions. The deal would also allow the A’s to buy more land, at $7 million for five acres.
The San Jose contract comes on the heels of a 10-year lease agreement the team signed with the city of Oakland to stay in the Coliseum. But that contract allows the A’s to move if another spot opens up within the decade.
In a council memo, Mayor Chuck Reed noted the many occasions San Jose has proven its commitment in moving the team to the Diridon Station area. The ballpark was incorporated into the blueprint for future development, the land rezoned and a committee formed to study the project.
A city-commissioned study of the economic impact estimated that the A’s ballpark would generate more than 1,000 jobs, $5 million a year in tax revenues for local government, more than $85 million of annual spending by fans and some $400 million in private investment to build the park.
More from the San Jose City Council agenda for November 4, 2014:
- A ballot measure that would overturn the city’s strict new rules limiting pot shops to just 1 percent of the city may take two years to get in front of voters. Sensible San Jose, a group of marijuana activists, gathered enough signatures to qualify their initiative, which would open up more of the city to cannabis collectives. It’s up to the council now to either hold a special election—which would cost about $3.5 million—or delay it to the next general election in 2016.
- Vice Mayor Madison Nguyen will donate the $7,347 leftover from her mayoral campaign to the city’s general fund.
- Team San Jose, the group that manages the city’s events and cultural facilities like the San Jose Convention Center, drew 1.3 million people to events in the past year and booked 255,000 future hotel rooms. The group surpassed its fiscal performance and economic impact targets to receive a $350,000 bonus.
- Conservationists are appealing a planning permit to develop seven single-family homes in south San Jose because of the biological impacts grading the land.
WHAT: City Council meets
WHEN: 1:30pm Tuesday
WHERE: City Hall, 200 E. Santa Clara St., San Jose
INFO: City Clerk, 408.535.1260
I understand that Reed will also soon announce that he’s reached an agreement with the Easter Bunny to make San Jose its new home.
Wow! First, there will be no “A”s coming to San Jose. San Jose will not get a new franchise now that Giants have won the World Series and garnered every spending dime from fans for the next ten years. If they were to get a team it would be called “The San Josie Enchillados” This is the back scam trying to hold off an investigation into the triple escrow flips on all the San Jose Redevelopment Agency Parcels that Reed and his boys shell and pea’d(Now Bankrupt) and the $300,000,000.0 or so squandered on $85,000,000.00 worth of useless property. Not to mention Sam Liccardo’s downtown property or Sam’s Licking v. San Jose deal for $2,095,000.00 for a baseball stadium drop off station. Bart isn’t even going to stop there. After Tuesday Governor Brown and Kamela will be paying Chuckles Reed, Slick Licarrdo and all the Redevelopment scammers an official visit to drop off official papers. If Cortese wins he is going to clean out the City starting with Chuckles. I understand there will be no independent auditors available for other companies in San Jose for a few months all the way back to the New City Hall and the Condos, and the golf courses and the theatres, dump fees, illegal alien car tows and The Convention Renovation scam, the Airport overrides and the giving away of the old City hall. Throw a rock in any direction and you will hit an embezzler.
KCBS, KLIV, and KGO have all reported repeatedly that the $100k is not annual, as Jennifer reports, but for four years, or $25k/year with three $25k/single year extensions possible. Who is correct?