Elephant Rumblings: Dave Stewart enters bidding to buy Oakland Coliseum site
MLB news roundup
Good morning afternoon, Athletics Nation!
The Oakland A’s stadium saga got its next chapter this holiday weekend.
When we last checked in, the team was in the middle of trying to purchase the Coliseum site, even though their preferred location to build a new ballpark is at Howard Terminal. Their overall plan includes redeveloping the Coliseum complex after they leave, so they want to buy it from its co-owners, the city and county. They already secured the county’s half last year, and after clearing some roadblocks they’re now negotiating with the City of Oakland to acquire the other half.
The team isn’t alone in its interest over the city’s share, though. Dave Stewart has entered a $115 million bid to the City of Oakland for their half of the Coliseum site, report Susan Slusser and Matt Kawahara of the S.F. Chronicle.
Stewart, of course, is a beloved figure both in A’s history and in the Oakland community. He was a star player for his hometown team and helped lead them to a World Series win in 1989, and he’s now a TV analyst and personality on their local NBCS game broadcasts, as well as a member of the inaugural class of the A’s Hall of Fame.
Click the Chronicle link for more details, but here are a couple speculative takeaways from my own personal reading of it.
Stewart and the team seem to have a positive relationship, and the ideas he discusses aren’t out of line with the goals the A’s have talked about for the site. Even if Stewart were to outbid the team for the city’s half, I don’t know if that would necessarily be a problem, or at least not a dealbreaker for the clubs’ larger plans. And considering the two of them aren’t the only ones making offers on it, co-owning with Stew doesn’t sound like the worst possible outcome either.
Stay tuned to see where this all goes next!
Home has ALWAYS been where my heart is. Oakland is every bit of who and why I am... An opportunity to do right by our community, keep our community, to do BETTER by our community is the only driving force for me in this. #wishusluck #Godspeed https://t.co/zwy3ocDgsk
— Dave “Smoke” Stewart (@Dsmoke34) January 17, 2021
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