Oakland A’s Want To Buy Coliseum Site Before Someone Else Does

With the search for a new ballpark for the Oakland A’s going into extra innings, the team proposed Monday to buy the entire Oakland Coliseum site, including its stadium, Oracle Arena and parking lots. The A’s said they would buy the site and pay off the city and county’s $135M remaining debt for the Coliseum and Oracle, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. While this does not guarantee the A’s will remain at the Coliseum, the team wants to buy the site so no one else does.

The team, which as five years left on its current lease at the Coliseum, is reconsidering the Coliseum site for a future ballpark after transit issues arose at the proposed Howard Terminal site. BART recently said it would not build another BART station in the area as the proposed station was in a busy section of track that would end up slowing down service. In December, Laney College decided against selling land to the A’s for a stadium close to downtown Oakland.

Oakland also is in the middle of considering buying Alameda County’s half-interest in the site and could later put the property out for bids. Fortress Investment Group has approached the city to buy the site and others have expressed interest. The team said it was concerned that it would be left out of talks.

The Warriors and the Coliseum Authority also are in the midst of arbitrating a deal over the basketball team’s departure from the Oracle Arena for the 2019-20 season. The public entity wants the team to help pay down the remaining debt for the arena, about $40M. The Raiders are expected to depart the Coliseum after the 2020 season.