The Oakland A’s have seemingly been looking for any excuse to bid their long time home farewell and head to greener pastures. It would appear as though the Department of Transportation handed them an out.
The City of Oakland had applied for a $180 million grant for the Howard Terminal Project, hoping to use that money to close the infrastructure gap for the A’s new ballpark. As Alex Shultz from SF Gate reported, Oakland did not receive any of the money that they had requested from that grant.
Oakland A’s Howard Terminal Project facing setback, not death sentence
While this is not ideal, it is only a setback. The Howard Terminal Project and a new ballpark for the A’s in Oakland is not over. As Casey Pratt from ABC7 noted, it would have been foolish for Oakland to pin all of their hopes for an off-site funding plan on this one grant. He also pointed out that the city did not expect to get all of that money anyway and expected to need other plans.
Oakland had already been looking at other options even before their application was denied. The city has reportedly considered a limited obligation bond in case those grants did not come through. And this grant had always seemed to be a longshot anyway.
What this does is put an onus on the state to deliver funding. Oakland can only do so much through taxes and bonds to find the money for this project. If the Howard Terminal Project is going to happen, it will be due to help from the state level.
This news is undoubtedly negative however. John Fisher can use this news as part of his justification to move the team to Las Vegas, something that the league has seemingly been pushing them toward for the past couple of years. But this saga is still far from over.
The Howard Terminal Project has received a setback as Oakland’s application for a grant was denied. However, this does not mean the Oakland A’s are gone just yet.