For the better part of the last four years, SF Bay Area developers Signature Properties and Reynolds and Brown have been planning a new development for Oakland's Waterfront called "Oak To Ninth." It will sit on what is currently a vastly underused area that makes up much of Oakland's developable waterfront, as the first photo on the left shows.
The plan consists of 3,100 units of housing and a combination of residential and retail in a kind of grid street system that will create a kind of new town in Oakland. For me, it's an exciting project, and what Oakland needs, but it lacks the real crowning land use: a baseball stadium for the Oakland A's.
I personally believe A's Owner Lew Wolff was approached by Signature Properties representatives -- in fact, I know this happened. But I'll also assert that the deal may have fallen apart because of a lack of redevelopment revenue to assist in building the project.
Even though it's Port of Oakland land, the city can -- and has -- used revelopment revenues in that area. Moreover, the Port of Oakland can establish its own redevelopment agency.
The plan has enough room for a new ballpark and the residential / retail development currently planned. But it's a matter of the City of Oakland itself having a vision for its future that includes the Oakland A's.
Right now, the city is doing what it does best: letting a developer take the lead rather than making sure that the city's needs are met within the context of the proposal of so large a development.
Some would challenge the importance of baseball, but those who do so understand nothing of Oakland 's civic soul and history and the combination of style of uses and sports that make up how diverse our city is.
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