Outline emerges of Oakland stadium deal to keep Raiders
With the clock ticking, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf is betting big that a combination of $600 million in private money from Ronnie Lott’s investment group, $200 million in public money and an equal amount from the National Football League will be enough to keep the stadium-hungry Raiders from moving to Las Vegas.
There has been no input from Raiders owner Mark Davis, who down the road may be asked to sell part of the team to Lott and his partners.
[...] with the NFL poised to vote as early as January on a Raiders move to Las Vegas, the heat is on for Oakland to come up with a plan countering the deal being offered by casino king Sheldon Adelson, which includes $750 million in hotel tax money already approved by the state of Nevada.
The city and county would also lease 125 acres of Coliseum property to the Oakland City Pro Football Group, led by former 49er and Raider Lott and fellow former NFL player Rodney Peete.
The remaining 35 acres would be devoted to a mixed-use retail development, probably featuring restaurants, sports bars and other forms of entertainment — plus, possibly, a hotel.
In exchange, the city and county would share some percentage of non-football revenues at the stadium — from concerts, soccer matches, college football championships and the like — plus new taxes generated by the commercial development.
While declining to discuss specifics, Gordon Runté, managing director at Fortress, confirmed for the first time Tuesday that his group is working with others “to structure a stadium financing and development deal that we believe would provide an attractive alternative for the Oakland Raiders.”
Add in the Raiders’ money and $200 million from the NFL stadium building fund, and you have a development deal worth north of $1.3 billion.
The mayor fumbled the snap on her first play for approval when she announced out of the blue on KTVU that she was sending the deal to the Alameda County Board of Supervisors for a preview in closed session last week.
The supervisor said the deal was also lacking a “stress test” by independent auditors to see whether the income projections would hold up in an economic downturn and not leave taxpayers holding a mega-million dollar bag of debt, as happened with the 1990s deal.
[...] the plan is to present the outline directly to NFL owners — along with votes of support from city and county officials — to show that the locals are ready to put up serious money to keep the team in place.
The hope is that the show of support will be enough for the NFL owners to block the team’s move to Nevada and open the door to the locals talking directly with Davis, which he has refused to do as long as the Las Vegas deal is on the table.