Oakland Approves New Ballpark Term Sheet That A’s Oppose

(Bloomberg) -- The city council in Oakland, California, has approved a non-binding proposal to build a waterfront stadium for the city’s major league baseball team, including terms that Athletics President Dave Kaval said he has reservations about.

While the term sheet gives a preliminary green light to the project, a final agreement still needs to be drawn up and approved. It’s unclear whether negotiations will move forward given Kaval’s opposition.

“The current term sheet, even with these amendments, is not something the A’s have consensus around,” Kaval said at the council meeting Tuesday. “This is not a term sheet that works for the A’s.”

City Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas said the term sheet is a “roadmap” for future negotiation and lays out the city’s parameters for a deal.

Under the terms, the team would finance the construction of the ballpark and the surrounding development. The city would create a tax-financing district to pay for on-site infrastructure.

Off-site infrastructure would likely be covered through a combination of state and federal funding, city officials said. The financing mechanism to fund the $352 million of off-site infrastructure was one of the the biggest sticking points going into the council meeting.

The city’s term sheet also includes a 25-year non-relocation agreement and a requirement that new apartments in the development include a target of 35% affordable housing.

“We believe the A’s can and should agree to the terms,” Fortunato Bas, Vice Mayor Rebecca Kaplan and Mayor Libby Schaaf said in a joint statement. “This is the path to keeping the A’s rooted in Oakland in a way that protects our Port and taxpayers and will produce the benefits our community demands and deserves.”

The A’s have been trying to secure a new ballpark to replace the aging RingCentral Coliseum for years. The team has played at the stadium, originally constructed for both the baseball team and the NFL’s Raiders, since the 1960s. It’s the last multipurpose facility of that era still in use, and the fifth-oldest major-league ballpark.

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