Black-Owned Developer Wins Deal for $5B Redo of Oakland Coliseum

African American Sports and Entertainment Group (AASEG) has reached an agreement with the City of Oakland on a $5 billion redevelopment of the Oakland Coliseum and a portion of the 100 acres surrounding it.

According to the terms of the agreement, the city will transfer 50% of the ownership of the Coliseum site to AASEG, the largest transfer of public land to a Black-owned developer in Oakland’s history, according to a report in the San Francisco Chronicle.

However, the developer won’t tear down the cavernous, 57-year-old Coliseum—a football stadium built for the Raiders, who have deserted Oakland for Las Vegas (after deserting the city twice for Los Angeles)—and replace it with a cozy new baseball stadium for the Oakland A’s.

The Athletics, the last professional sports team left in Oakland, have been threatening for the past two years to leave town for—you guessed it, Vegas—if the city doesn’t give the MLB team the deal they want: a new baseball stadium and a 3,000-unit retail village, all part of a $12B development at Howard Terminal—which is the other 50% of the 100-acre Coliseum site.

The A’s originally were designated to develop the entire Coliseum site, but after negotiations broke down, the city—not wanting to sit idly by and watch its NFL and MLB teams both end up in Las Vegas—decided to split the site in half and hired AASEG to renovate the Coliseum for more football, among other attractions.

AASEG says it is aiming to bring a Black-owned NFL franchise and a WNBA team to Oakland. In addition to renovating the Coliseum, the developer is planning a complex with homes, a convention center, a hotel, restaurants, museums and an outdoor amphitheater for youth sports.

The Coliseum, built in the circular, multi-purpose style of the 1970s, will be upgraded so it can be configured not just for an NFL team, but also a WNBA basketball court, and a venue for concerts and events like Disney on Ice.

The deal requires AASRG—formed in 2020 by a group of civic leaders in Oakland to develop sports and entertainment venues to enhance economic equity—to make a one-time $2.5M payment to the city as well as an annual fee of $200K per year.

The group, which is purchasing the city’s half-interest in the site for $115M, includes former Oakland City Manager Robert Bobb; Oakland-based developer Alan Dones; Shona Scott, a former chair of the Oakland African American Chamber of Commerce, former NBA player and sports agent Bill Duffy and Loop Capital, a Black-owned investment firm.

The agreement gives AASEG two years to gain approval from the City Council for a development plan for the site.