A week after Alameda County sent notice to A’s owner John Fisher to pay the county $45 million by May 14 for the team’s half of the Coliseum property, the A’s responded on Thursday.
In a letter acquired by the Chronicle to Nate Miley, president of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors, the A’s said they will follow the terms of the agreement from their purchase in 2019 “We will continue to satisfy our obligations under the Agreement, including the obligations set forth in Section 3.6,” wrote D’Lonra C. Ellis, chief legal officer of Coliseum Way Partners, which represents Fisher and the A’s.
The A’s bought the county’s 50% interest in the Coliseum site for $85 million four years ago and so far, have paid $40 million. The terms call for the A’s to pay $15 million in January 2024, February 2025 and January 2026, but a clause in the agreement was triggered requiring the A’s to pay it off earlier.
The clause states the A’s must pay the remaining balance within 180 days of announcing the team would leave Oakland; May 14 is 180 days after 30 MLB owners voted unanimously Nov. 16 for the A’s to relocate to Las Vegas.
In last week’s letter to the A’s, Miley pointed out that both Fisher and team president Dave Kaval, on the day of the vote, made comments confirming they're pulling the team out of Oakland.
The other half of the Coliseum property is owned by the City of Oakland, which is in an exclusive negotiating agreement to sell to the African American Sports and Entertainment Group, an Oakland organization formed to pursue development of the property.
The A's haven't revealed their plans for the property. So, any discussion on future development is sticky. The 50-50 split doesn't mean the property literally is divided in half; instead, the two parties equally share the land and must abide by a cooperation agreement for any development at the site.
The purchase of the property by the A's appears to have been conducted in a less-than-upfront manner. In 2019, Kaval wrote a letter to the Oakland City Council pleading that the A’s needed to buy the Coliseum site as a backup in case the Howard Terminal ballpark plan fell through. However, shortly after the A's bought into the property, Kaval declared the Coliseum was unsuitable for Major League Baseball.
The A's walked away from negotiations with the city on Howard Terminal in April and focused all their attention to Las Vegas. In June, they were gifted $380 million in taxpayer money by Nevada lawmakers to help fund their ballpark on the Las Vegas Strip.
MLB owners voted 30-0 last month to approve the relocation even though a Las Vegas ballpark wouldn't open until 2028 and the A's have yet to determine where they will play in 2025, '26 and '27. The Coliseum lease expires after the 2024 season.
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