Oakland Athletics: Howard Terminal Site Front-Runner for New Ballpark?

On Sunday, Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross of the San Francisco Chronicle reported that there may be a quieter, yet still important, supporter of the Howard Terminal site for a future, baseball-only park for the Oakland Athletics. This would be John Fisher, the son of the founder of Gap and the team’s majority stakeholder with an 80% stake in the Athletics. Even though he is not as outspoken as co-owner Lew Wolff, Matier and Ross reported that Fisher has taken an active role in the search for a new ballpark for the A’s.

While Wolff does not like the Howard Terminal site, Fisher seems to agree with Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf’s opinion that this may be the ideal place to build a new stadium. Additionally, the push to look at other potential areas for a new ballpark besides the current O.co Coliseum site is bigger than ever since it is extremely unlikely that the Oakland Raiders will be moving to Los Angeles anytime soon. Interestingly enough, as Matier and Ross reported, Schaaf visited Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred in New York to chat with “him about her talks with Fisher and to promote the Howard Terminal ballpark site.” 

The Howard Terminal location has been in the mix among potential sites for a new baseball-only park since late 2013. Howard Terminal is on the banks of the Oakland Estuary and just a few blocks north of Jack London Square, which is an up and coming entertainment and business area in downtown Oakland. This spot would allow for a waterfront ballpark that could hopefully transform that industrial area in the same manner as AT&T Park, the home of the San Francisco Giants, positively changed San Francisco’s South of Market (SoMA) neighborhood.

Even though this location has been considered for quite some time, it was thought that the Howard Terminal site proposal was dead back in 2014 due to the potential cleanup costs and the lack of public transportation in the area. Additionally, former MLB Commissioner Bud Selig agreed with Wolff that the Howard Terminal location was not an ideal place for a new ballpark. But, the idea of this site being a potential location for a new baseball-only stadium seems to have been resurrected this offseason.

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Because Fisher owns more of the team than Wolff, his opinion will be very important during this whole process. And, with Selig gone, Manfred dedicated to finding a site for a new stadium for the Oakland Athletics, and Fisher starting to voice his opinion more assertively, Wolff may have a hard time keeping the A’s away from the Howard Terminal site.