With the Oakland A’s considering the site for a new ballpark, a group is distributing fliers in opposition to the team building at Howard Terminal.
The waterfront Howard Terminal site is currently being studied by the A’s as they look to build a new ballpark in Oakland to replace the aging Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. The Coliseum property is also still being considered by the A’s, who have not settled on a decision for where they will pursue the construction of a new ballpark.
However, with Howard Terminal still under consideration, a group that bills itself as Protect Oakland’s Shoreline Economy is stating its opposition to idea of a new ballpark at that location. It is unknown exactly who is behind the group, but this comes after the A’s saw a previous proposal–one to build at a site near Laney College–collapse late last year in the midst of neighborhood opposition. More from The San Francisco Chronicle:
The mailer ticks off a list of drawbacks to the proposed move, including “severe traffic impacts” to nearby warehouses and neighborhoods and the “hundreds of millions of dollars” in taxpayer-funded infrastructure that will be needed.
The flyer even argues that an A’s waterfront ballpark would force the homeless to move their street camps to make room for fan parking and describes the team’s plan for an overhead gondola to ferry fans over the nearby railroad tracks as “silly.”
Just who’s behind Protect Oakland’s Shoreline Economy, which lists its address at an Oak Street condo complex in Jack London Square, is a bit of a mystery. But the group’s mailer appears to be an attempt to stir up the type of neighborhood opposition that killed the team’s first choice for its new ballpark: next to Laney College near downtown Oakland.
It was in September of last year that the A’s announced that they would pursue the site near Laney College for a new ballpark. That marked a major step in the team’s long-standing effort to replace the Coliseum, but opposition from the neighborhood had surfaced before discussions with the Peralta Community College District Board of Trustees collapsed in December.
The A’s eventually decided to further explore both the Howard Terminal and Coliseum sites, and are working to settle on a preferred site by the end of this year.
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