Oakland to close Coliseum sale next year, reversing its previous deal

OAKLAND — The city has reversed course on what remained of a plan to dramatically speed up the sale of its Oakland Coliseum share, placing the deal back onto a “more conventional” timeline, as one official put it.

City leaders now plan to finalize the $125 million sale of their Coliseum stake when Alameda County closes a deal to sell its own half of the massive property by the end of June 2026.

On Monday, the Oakland City Council voted unanimously to delay until next spring 2026 a $95 million payment that the land buyers, a large coalition of Black entrepreneurs, had been expected to complete by May 30 of this year.

The payment had been part of former Mayor Sheng Thao’s plan to expedite the massive land sale so that the revenue could help plug a crippling budget deficit facing the city government.

After voters recalled Thao in November, city officials abandoned plans to budget the money gained from selling a one-time asset to balance a longterm financial crisis.

Now, the African American Sports and Entertainment Group, or AASEG, has received another year to square away its purchase of both the city’s half of the Coliseum and the other half that the county was in the process of selling to the A’s baseball franchise.

AASEG, which is buying the site through an affiliate entity, the Oakland Acquisition Company, also intends to pay off any longstanding bonds remaining at the Coliseum site.

Plans to close the deal sooner have faced numerous delays. Alameda County had sought to transfer its deal with the A’s to AASEG by December, but months later those negotiations are still playing out in closed-door meetings of the county Board of Supervisors.

Still, the council’s vote Monday erased the last remnants of Thao’s original plan: a Hail Mary gamble announced last May that sought to cram a complex land deal into a 12-month timeline.

“This would transform the sale into something that’s a lot more conventional with the market,” Brendan Moriarty, a city real property asset manager who has been involved in negotiations with AASEG, said Monday at a council meeting.

“It would take an installment sale, which is unusual, and make it into a traditional purchase-and-sale structure,” Moriarty said.

Ray Bobbitt, a co-founder of AASEG’s local flagship entity, said in a recent interview that the group never asked to speed up its acquisition of the Coliseum.

The larger coalition’s funding arm, Chicago-based investment firm Loop Capital, backed out of Thao’s original budget-saving deal once it realized that the payment installments would not give the buyers incremental ownership of the property.

“There have been a lot of moving parts – it’s a very complex process,” Bobbitt said at Monday’s meeting.

He hinted at what might be holding up talks between the group and Alameda County officials: namely, an environmental nonprofit’s lawsuit against the county over the $85 million sale of its Coliseum share to the A’s, a deal that included no guarantee of affordable housing.

AASEG plans to acquire the A’s ownership stake for $125 million. With full ownership of the 112-acre property, the group promises to transform the stadium, arena and sprawling parking lots into a new hub of live events, restaurants, retail, hotels and housing.

Bobbitt is the local face of the project, but the more specialized coalition partners include Loop Capital, the sports agent Bill Duffy, real-estate developer Alan Dones and former Oakland City Manager Robert Bobb.

Delays to the sale have often placed AASEG in political crosshairs, especially among Thao’s harshest critics. But the group received support from city and county officials at Monday’s meeting.

“Whoever has purchased just a standard residential property understands how difficult it is,” Councilmember Ken Houston said. “This is a complex transaction. Things come up, and you’re dealing with two different governmental agencies. But it’s moving forward.”

Shomik Mukherjee is a reporter covering Oakland. Call or text him at 510-905-5495 or email him at shomik@bayareanewsgroup.com.