Cisco Field will be on Irvington district and More update

A's complete field renovations at school
Fields at Washington High School in Fremont are redone

The A's and their partners, the Good Tidings Foundation, cut the ribbon on their latest field renovation on Tuesday, celebrating the completion of work on the baseball and softball fields at Washington High School in Fremont.A's owner Lew Wolff and club president Mike Crowley joined pitcher Huston Street and catcher Kurt Suzuki to lead the A's contingent attending the event. Alameda County Supervisor Scott Haggerty, Fremont Mayor Bob Wasserman, Fremont Unified School District Superintendent Doug Gephart and Washington High School student body president Tenaya Davis also participated in the ceremony.

The A's began the renovation process of both fields at the end of June. It included the replacement of the entire irrigation system, fresh sod and infield dirt. The renovations also included new concrete under the bleachers for both fields, a new wood backstop with fresh paint and fencing around the bullpen for the baseball field, and fresh paint on the backstop and fencing to enclose fan and bleacher areas behind the backstop for the softball field.

Last year, WHS renamed the baseball field in honor of alumnus Dennis Eckersley, the former A's right-hander who went on to reach the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Last season, the A's and Good Tidings Foundation renovated and renamed Rickey Henderson Baseball Field located at the Arroyo Viejo Recreation Center in East Oakland and renovated Bambino Field at the Greenman Field Baseball Complex in Oakland in 2005.

The Good Tidings Foundation is a 501-(c)-3 children's charity that looks to equally support education, athletics and the arts for youth from communities of need in the greater Bay Area. The Good Tidings Foundation received assistance from general contractor Robert A. Bothman, Inc., Calco Fence, Hunter Industries, Kelly-Moore Paints and West Coast Turf in the renovation of the Washington High School baseball and softball fields.

Concern

The new A's Stadium maybe will fall through. For Example: If Lew Wolff wants to build a overpass freeway. But Lew Wolff wants the City of Fremont to pay for the overpass freeway. The City of Fremont can't afford too build a overpass freeway. "Then the new A's Stadium deal is off."

September 18 City Council Work Session

The City Council held an additional work session on September 18 to hear an updated presentation from the Oakland A's on their proposed Ballpark Village land use plans. Keith Wolff, co-owner of the A's, and Marty Borko from Gensler Architects, discussed the following items with regard to the proposed Ballpark Village: residential density, land use variety/flexibility, school site and design, connectivity and walkability, parks, parking and transportation, and sustainable elements.

Watch the Work Session.

Below is the A's presentation. Please note: due to the size of the file, it is divided into 5 different PDFs.

Part 1,2	Part 3,4	Part 5

New A's ballpark in Fremont would be surrounded by upscale eateries

If approved by Fremont's City Council, the $450 million Cisco Field would open in 2011 in a now-vacant lot in the city's Irvington district. It would be surrounded by high-end retail stores, restaurants overlooking the outfield, and housing for at least 3,000 people, A's officials told Fremont Tuesday night.

"This is the biggest project Fremont will ever see," said Mayor Bob Wasserman. "If it's approved, it will create a pride here. It will make the city a whole place."

Though finances weren't part of the discussion as the A's outlined the latest details of their 200-acre, $1.8 billion development plan to Fremont officials and residents at Fremont City Hall, the team has asserted that a new ballpark would raise millions of dollars a year in public and private revenue.

On Tuesday, the A's said they would comply with city officials' request to move a proposed elementary school closer to the stadium. It had been planned for several blocks away.

Cisco Field - which would be located 25 miles south of the the team's current stadium on Oakland- would seat 32,000 and be the smallest ballpark in Major League Baseball. Almost the entire outfield would be rimmed with elevated seated. That way, pedestrians, shoppers and diners walking in a mall area below could watch the game for free through windows beneath those elevated seats.

The team, tentatively to be called the Athletics at Fremont - at one time it had been the Silicon Valley Athletics at Fremont - would play in a classic ballpark with plenty of bricks reminiscent of Boston's Fenway Park or AT&T Park in San Francisco, said Keith Wolff, the A's co-owner.

"On game days, the ballpark will provide energy and excitement," Wolff said. "On nongame days, it will be like a sculpture or a park."

The public would also be able to watch games for free from a public park just beyond center field. That park would even have its own scoreboard.

The development would include 11,000 parking spaces cloaked by four- and five-story residential buildings, with more than 3,000 units in all.

Most of the 60 or so Fremont residents who attended Tuesday's meeting supported the project.

"Fremont, for many years, has needed something to keep people here," said Bill Rinetti, owner of Massimo's restaurant there. "People will stay here and spend their money here, and the whole city will prosper."

Not everyone was thrilled with the project. Some complained that the ballpark wouldn't be close enough to BART - it's five miles from the nearest station - and that the shopping area would attract too much traffic.

There were also environmental concerns.

"Everyone here seems to be intoxicated with the idea of bringing a professional ball team to Fremont," said Vinton Bacon of Fremont who works for the Sierra Club. "This project brings more suburban sprawl and is inherently environmentally unfriendly."

The A's plan to submit a formal development application to Fremont within four weeks, Wolff said. The A's have said they are leaving Oakland because they couldn't secure land for the expanded development the owners envisioned.

"We tried to do it in Oakland. That was our first choice," Wolff said. "The officials were great, our fans are amazing. We just couldn't get the land."

Athletics to submit project application by mid-October

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City Manager Fred Diaz announced at Tuesday's Fremont City Council work session that the Oakland Athletics are planning to submit a project application for the so-called Cisco Field ballpark village.

Diaz said the baseball team is expected to submit the application by the end of September, or in early October.

The announcement comes after A's co-owner Keith Wolff and architect Marty Borko laid out more detailed plans for the team's 143-acre site west of Interstate 880.

The city council work session comes after council members in July expressed ire that plans for the development were not as detailed as they hoped nearly a year after the A's had made plans to move the franchise from Oakland to Fremont.

"From our last meeting with you there was a lot of good discussion, so we'll walk with you tonight and touch on some ideas discussed last time," Borko said.

An architect with San Francisco-based Gensler Architects, Borko said the team now hopes to develop 517,000 square feet of retail space, and 3,150 total residential units on the site. A 110-room hotel would also be built.

A 41.35-acre commercial overlay district will be on the southwestern parcel of the site, with 5,500-parking spaces, seven acres of open space, and 850-residential units.

According to Borko, 300,000 square feet of commercial office space can be built in two stories on the parcel.

Parking, he added, would need to be underneath the residential and commercial units due to a higher density desired for the parcel. Parking on this parcel is a quarter-mile from the ballpark.

To the south of the ballpark would be higher density residential zones, with about 8 to 12 percent open space interspersed as 13 neighborhood parks.

"In a sense, within the overall residential development, we're trying to create different neighborhoods, and organized around different open space parcels," Borko said. "Some will be more active and centered around family, while some may be more passive."

Open space in the ballpark village, located to the northeast of the stadium, would be in the form of a plaza directly adjacent to Cisco Field, according to Borko.

To the south of the residential areas, and at the southernmost part of the property, is planned as an elementary school.

Borko said the potential school has not been sited yet, but the team is conducting ongoing discussions with Fremont Unified School District.

He said discussions have centered on the types of programs the district would want at the school, the size, as well as urbanizing the campus.

Borko said the schools would sit on 4 acres and be a Kindergarten through sixth grade site.

In the northwest corner of the development would sit a 41.6-acre municipal parcel, which would include transit, more parking and public parks.

Wolff said over the entire site, there would be about 11,300-parking stalls for baseball fans. He said at McAfee Coliseum a stadium surrounded by parking lots there are only 8,300-parking stalls provided for spectators.

He added the goal during game days is to get motorists off I-880 and into parking areas as quickly as possible to prevent traffic congestion.

To do that, Wolff said, drivers will be directed to make as few left turns as possible to get to parking lots, so they don't cross traffic and cause traffic jams.

Wolff added that on day one of the first season at Cisco Field, there will be enough parking for all 32,000 fans the team hopes to attract.

However, Wolff said he hopes afterward more people will begin to use public transportation.

Currently, 82 percent of A's fans who attend games in Oakland drive to McAfee Coliseum, according to Wolff.

He said he believes that will be reduced at rush hour once the team moves because there will only be 42 mid-week, evening games.

With 6,000 to 7,000 people in the ballpark village, Wolff said he hopes more people will walk to games than drive.

He admitted, however, that public transit options are still a concern.

"On day one, we don't know if BART will be at Warm Springs, which is still 1.5 miles away (from the park)," he said. "So right now we're looking into if we can provide shuttle services."

According to Wolff, ACE and the Capital Corridor trains have expressed interest in stopping at the stadium, but only as long as there is demand to ride their systems. He added the team is currently discussing available services with AC Transit.

While speakers in favor of the project repeated how beneficial it would be to Fremont, others weren't so sure.

Vinny Bacon of the Sierra Club said the ball park project appears to be more auto-oriented, and goes against the "smart growth" the A's are allegedly trying to promote.

"Transit for the project is inadequate and they've even admitted that they have no transit plan on day one," he said.

Bill Spicer said the team's presentation was no different from ones he had seen over the last year.

"The slides I've seen tonight, I've seen before. I'd like to see a timetable of when we're going to get to the hard numbers and hard facts. I want to get to the data instead of the romance," he said.

Bill Renetti, Mossimo's restaurant owner and a supporter of the stadium, said the project would keep visitors in Fremont and frequenting business all over the city.

"This will be great for restaurants, not just restaurants by the park, but outside the park as well," he said.

Council members were pleased there was a little more detail presented at the work session, but still wanted more.

"I like to see visuals, like what three or four stories will look like in that spot, or what the park will look like from the freeway," Councilman Bill Harrison said. "We've seen a lot of numbers, but I'm a visuals kind of guy and I'd like to see more of that."

Mayor Bob Wasserman stated prior to Diaz's concluding announcement that he'd like to get the ball rolling on a formal application process.

"It's an extremely large project and takes a lot of time, and needs a lot of steps. But I think it's time to move to the next step, which is submitting an application and conducting studies," he said.

More information on the A's ballpark project can be found at www.ci.fremont.ca.us, or at oaklandas.com.