[Elvis]

http://www.mercurynews.com/raiders/ci_2 ... adium-deal

Kephart strikes out on Oakland Raiders stadium deal

OAKLAND -- Floyd Kephart is being dropped as Coliseum City developer in a move local leaders hope will speed up and simplify stadium negotiations with both the Oakland A's and Raiders that often seemed to take a back seat to the $4 billion mega-project Kephart championed.

The joint decision by Oakland council members and Alameda County supervisors not to renew Kephart's negotiating rights to the project sets the stage for a flurry of direct stadium talks with the Raiders, who, unlike their baseball co-tenants at O.Co Coliseum, are threatening to leave Oakland for Southern California next season if no deal is reached.

Rather than trying to incorporate a new Raiders stadium into one of the most complex and expensive developments in city history -- an approach resisted by the team -- the stadium itself, at least for now, will take precedence over any surrounding development.

"I definitely view this as a positive," sports business consultant Andy Dolich said. "It puts pressure on the city and the county and the Raiders to ultimately decide if there is a future working directly together for a new stadium in Oakland."

However, the removal of Kephart as a third-party developer doesn't remedy the estimated $400 million funding gap for a new $900 million football stadium. Nor does it change the fact that Oakland, unlike most other NFL cities, says it won't use taxpayer funds to help pay for it.

Kephart, a San Diego-based finance professional, was brought aboard almost a year ago to help address the funding gap by developing a bustling urban center around the new stadium. But confidence in him waned after he released a widely panned initial financing plan in June, and the teams stopped talking to him months ago. He did not respond to an interview request Friday.

With Kephart's negotiating rights set to expire on Thursday, the Oakland City Council and Alameda County Board of Supervisors agreed in separate closed door meetings this week to cut ties and send him a letter outlining deficiencies in his latest proposal, said several officials who asked not to be named because the talks were private.

"The financial deliverables are not close to being met," one official said.

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf could not be reached for comment Friday. Alameda County Nate Miley declined to discuss anything about Kephart, but he said the city and county would continue direct negotiations with both teams and with each other to determine whether the city can buy out the county's share of the 120-acre property.

He also wouldn't rule out the inclusion of a new third-party investor to help finance a stadium project.

"There are other potential parties out there who could help us out," he said, declining to name any of them. "But they haven't been able to (talk to us) because of our involvement with (Kephart.)"

Still, Kephart is now the third would-be developer to strike out on transforming the site from a sea of parking spaces to a mini downtown with 4,000 homes, a shopping center and offices. And there is little reason to expect anyone will step forward to turn that vision into reality.

The only way to squeeze so many buildings onto the property, which includes the Oracle Arena, is by building multilevel parking garages. But that has been a nonstarter because both teams have been adamant about retaining surface parking.

"They have set forth their parking requirements, and most of it is 'let's let people get in to the venue and out as quickly as possible,'" Assistant City Administrator Claudia Cappio said. "When you structure parking, you open up issues."

Parking was only one of several challenges that proved Kephart's undoing. He never won the trust of A's management, who saw him complicating any stadium deal, or Alameda County officials, who were more interested in paying off the county's nearly $50 million debt on the existing O.Co Coliseum than in partnering on a new development project.

And even though he touted his connections to hedge funds, Kephart -- just like his predecessors, real estate titans Forest City and Colony Capital -- couldn't make the ambitious project pencil out.

The biggest gulf was with the Raiders, who did not respond to a request for comment Friday. To close the $400 million funding gap for a new stadium, Kephart recommended borrowing against future stadium revenue, even though the team had made clear that it wanted control of all stadium revenue to pay its share of the facility.

Using real estate rights to help finance the stadium remains a good idea, said Marc Ganis, head of Sportscorp and a consultant on numerous NFL stadium deals. "This is a fertile region of the country. It just seems like they went down the wrong path for too long."

Contact Matthew Artz at 510-208-6435.

[BuiltRamTough]

Bye Floyd.

[TSFH Fan]

In another area of Northern California: I remember a couple of years back, right after the last game of the Sacramento Kings' season, the broadcast announcers were saying their goodbyes on the air and one of the announcers was giving a teary, emotional farewell. There was no stadium deal and it was good bye to the Sacville Kings. Wow, what do you know, someone pulled a stadium out of their butt and the Kings stayed. Hurray . . . sure that was basketball, smaller, cheaper stadium, with actual politicians and businesses semi-pulling in the same direction, but it's all still one big evil, nasty "Northern California" to me . . . I get the feeling pulling stadiums out of orifices (so that's why the Cow Palace smells that way?) is what they do up there and the Raiders get a new stadium where they have to come up with a new explanation why it smells like overflowing sewage.


Bye, bye Floyd, hope you enjoyed that 15 minutes . .

[TomSlick]

The city of Oakland is a joke. They lost the Warriors, they'll lose the Raiders and A's. On top of everything else the crime rate is ridiculous. Long ago it was a fine city...not now.

[snackdaddy]

The city of Oakland is a joke. They lost the Warriors, they'll lose the Raiders and A's. On top of everything else the crime rate is ridiculous. Long ago it was a fine city...not now.

I won't say its a dangerous city, but I thought I saw a want ad listing for a tail gunner on a bread truck.