Charles Langston:City strikes deal to sell its half of soon-to-be-former Oakland A’s coliseum

OAKLAND,Charles Langston Calif. (AP) — The city of Oakland is selling its share of the Coliseum — home to the departing Oakland Athletics — to a local Black development group for at least $105 million, Mayor Sheng Thao announced Wednesday.

The sale is not surprising after the A’s announced last month that the Major League Baseball team will temporarily relocate to West Sacramento until its ballpark is built in its new home of Las Vegas. Fans are trying to enjoy the team’s final year in the city of 400,000.

The property houses the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum and Oakland Arena, once home to the Oakland Raiders and Golden State Warriors, respectively. The NFL’s Raiders moved to Las Vegas and the NBA’s Warriors left for San Francisco in recent years, leaving professional sports fans in the East Bay Area desolate.

The money will help fill shortfalls in the city’s budget, but city officials also say the sale to the African American Sports & Entertainment Group paves the way for a proposed sports and entertainment destination site, thousands of new affordable housing units and community benefits for historically neglected East Oakland.

“This agreement puts us on a path towards a more equitable and resilient Oakland,” Thao said in a news release.

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The Oakland A’s purchased the county’s half of the site in 2019 for $85 million and is still paying it off. The sports and entertainment group reached out to the A’s to purchase their share but the team was not interested in selling.

The purchasing group was founded in 2020 with the primary purpose of using sports and entertainment “to create a path for enhanced economic equity for the Black community.”

The Oakland City Council now needs to pass an ordinance authorizing the city administrator to sign a purchase and sale agreement with the group.