After A's plan falls apart, a new twist changes everything for the future of Oakland's waterfront

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May 12

OAKLAND — Departing sports teams and frustrating politics haven't detracted from the elegance of Oakland's waterfront — a gleaming reminder that, despite its troubles, the city and its bustling port remain a cultural and economic cornerstone of the Bay Area.

But for years, Oakland has struggled to establish a large-scale vision to place the waterfront — with its nightlife hub at Jack London Square and the industrial harbor a short walk away — at center stage in the city's attractions.

"People see an incredible amount of potential in the neighborhood," said Savlan Hauser, executive director of the Jack London Square Improvement District. "It's not so much about needing to change it, but (rather) about realizing the full vision of a waterfront neighborhood."

In a recent court settlement, a major Bay Area regulatory agency quietly reversed a key decision that would've helped transform a sizable port property, Howard Terminal, into a 35,000-seat ballpark and thousands of waterfront homes.

The reversal was a major victory for the port's shipping industries, which have long opposed housing on the land south of the railroad tracks along Embarcadero West.

The development at Howard Terminal, proposed by the soon-to-depart A's, has long since fallen apart. Any new plans at the port would need to start from scratch, likely encountering legal, regulatory and environmental hurdles.

So where does the Oakland waterfront go from here?

In a lengthy report unveiled this spring outlining Oakland's plans for downtown, the waterfront and Jack London Square feature heavily for their various existing offerings: restaurants, bars, historic monuments, a hotel, a bowling alley and a terminal that sends ferries to San Francisco.

But the same plan notes that areas to the west of Jack London Square — including Howard Terminal, the site of the doomed A's redevelopment — will be "maintained for industrial uses."

Business owners around the waterfront say the commercial district is mostly faring well but could use a significant boost in foot traffic, given that it is cut off from downtown Oakland by I-880.

Hauser, of the improvement district, was among those excited to see the A's potentially build the massive ballpark-and-housing development at Howard Terminal, which encompasses 55 acres of port land currently used as a staging area for shipping containers and trucks at the busy industrial harbor.

Howard Terminal is seen in this drone view over Oakland, Calif., on Wednesday, Nov. 28, 2018. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)

The A's aren't done fighting legal battles on the waterfront, despite being set to move to West Sacramento next year, potentially en route to Las Vegas.

Last week, a federal judge sent to trial the baseball franchise's legal complaint against longstanding manufacturing plant Schnitzer Steel, which would've neighbored the A's development and which the team has accused of failing to prevent air-quality violations and environmental hazards. Radius Recycling, the parent company of Schnitzer Steel, did not respond to an interview request.

In a statement, the A's noted an investment of $100 million over six years to bring the team's ballpark dreams to life.

On an average weekday afternoon, the Bay-facing Jack London Square is somehow both scenic and full of businesses — but also noticeable for its relative quiet. Mostly empty walkways are filled by seagulls.

A woman finishes her ice cream as she walks past an empty storefront business at Jack London Square in Oakland, Calif., on Monday, April 29, 2024. Now that the Oakland A's stadium development is unlikely to happen the future is unsure for local businesses in the Oakland waterfront area. (Jose Carlos Fajardo/Bay Area News Group)

A smattering of tourists and port workers on lunch breaks amble around with no shortage of places to sit. The A's haven't said when they will close the team's headquarters, which sits adjacent to the square.

"The stadium would've brought more business to the economy and this area," said Juan Ferrell, a manager at Scott's Seafood Grill and Bar, which opened at the square nearly a half-century ago. "We need more attractions here. I was sad that it wasn't possible."

In the wake of the city's divorce from the A's, Mayor Sheng Thao had said the Howard Terminal property was still ripe for any developer who wanted to step forward.

Oakland had cleared multiple regulatory hurdles and raised nearly $260 million to support some kind of public-facing real estate there, Thao had reminded the public at the time.

But much of that progress was undone last month when the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission agreed in a court settlement with a shipping-industry coalition to reinstate a clause that Howard Terminal must be prioritized for maritime uses or the shipping of goods by sea.

The two sides settled after agreeing that the A's deal is officially dead, in part because the team's negotiating period with the Port of Oakland expired over a year ago.

As a result, Oakland likely won't have any housing or commercial real estate built right up against the bay waters any time soon — especially when there isn't a major professional sports franchise leading the charge behind a development.

In March, private shipping industry groups developed a summary of how they'd instead like to "advance the industrial waterfront." Charging stations for electric-powered trucks and off-shore wind energy projects ranked near the top of the list. An industry representative said there's some wiggle room for other plans, but not a lot.

"We were philosophically opposed to giving up the property for" the A's development, said Mike Jacob of the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association, "but as a practical matter, we were interested in sitting down to (discuss) seaport compatibility with a ballpark and not housing. It would've smoothed the path toward some non-maritime redevelopment."

These obstacles are, in some ways, not a bug but a feature of the waterfront, which infamously — and illegally — fell under the full ownership of Horace Carpentier, the first mayor of Oakland in the mid-19th century, who eventually sold his control of the land at a profit to Southern Pacific Railroad.

The messy history of the waterfront is fresh on the mind of Elliott Myles, a co-owner of Heinold's First and Last Chance Saloon — the bar where American novelist Jack London himself would study in his youth.

Myles, who has witnessed multiple ambitious redevelopments at the square in his time, always thought the A's proposal was a "pipe dream." Envisioning the waterfront's economic future, he said, is more complicated than it seems.

"If you want more bustle, you need to do something with the square other than restaurants and bars," Myles said. "People need something else to do."