Developer Expected To Present Plans For Raiders- A's Shared Oakland Site On Monday
OAKLAND (KCBS) — We may know sometime Monday whether a plan to build a new football stadium for the Oakland Raiders in Oakland is still in play.
New City Development, a San Diego developer, is expected to present proposed plans for a $1 billion stadium project to meet their Monday deadline. KCBS, KPIX and Chronicle Insider Phil Matier reported the developer is expected to spell out exactly how they plan to finance a new stadium on or adjacent to the existing Coliseum.
It had previously been reported that the plan would call for the City of Oakland and Alameda County to kick in as much as $140 million for infrastructure improvements.
Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf said some level of local financial commitment may not be entirely out of the question.
"New facilities in San Francisco have demonstrated that these sports facilities can be built with private money as long as there's public support that's appropriate," Schaaf said.
Matier said the plan has been more than three years in the works and was originally conceived by former Mayor Jean Quan as a way to save the Golden State Warriors from heading back to San Francisco.
Apparently talks have gone well. Back in March, New City's Floyd Kephart said he expected a tough road ahead. "There are a lot of egos involved," he said.
A's owner Lew Wolff might be considered a part of that category since he's said he doesn't want his team to share the Coliseum site with the Raiders even though the A's would have its own ballpark.
"What we have here is a situation where you have two teams playing in one stadium. It's a multi-purpose stadium. It doesn't really work for the A's," Matier said. "Really what the [A's] want is a prime ballpark. They want an AT&T Park either in the East Bay or in San Jose with great sightlines. That means building a separate facility so you've got to build two." Matier concluded that the A's and Raiders mutually don't want to be co-tenants in the joint operation.
"It's a question of who's going to put up public money to get this done," Matier observed.
The Raiders are also exploring a move to Carson in Southern California, where they'd share a stadium with the San Diego Chargers.