Important Step for Oakland A’s Waterfront Ballpark and Development

The Alameda County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday (Oct. 26) delivered the equivalent of an inning-saving base hit to advance a proposed Oakland A’s ballpark and commercial and residential development at Howard Terminal along the Oakland waterfront. In a non-binding vote, the Board effectively endorsed a plan to create a special local tax financing district to help fund critical public infrastructure for the project.

Bay Area Council CEO Jim Wunderman in an OpEd–Alameda County needs to support A’s waterfront ballpark–that ran Monday (Oct. 25) in the East Bay Times and Mercury News urged the Board to move forward. The vote came at an important juncture, with the A’s coming under growing pressure from Major League Baseball to advance the project or take more serious steps to move the team out of the city and out of the Bay Area. Without Alameda County’s participation, the project was in serious jeopardy. The Council thanks the Board for its action and Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf for her steadfast leadership to keep the A’s in Oakland.

In addition to a dazzling new ballpark that would be fully paid for by the A’s, the project would transform an underutilized, functionally obsolete cargo terminal into a vibrant new neighborhood of 3,000 homes and nearly 2 million square feet of new office, retail, dining and performing arts spaces, with great union jobs and almost 20 acres of new public parks on the Oakland estuary.