Coliseum sale is 'catalyst' for future Hegenberger corridor development: mayor
OAKLAND, Calif. - Oakland announced the city has reached a purchase-and-sale agreement to transfer its share of the Coliseum to the African American Sports and Entertainment Group for $105 million.
At a news conference on Tuesday, Mayor Sheng Thao said the sale represented a huge investment in East Oakland, which will boost much-needed economic development in the area.
"We demand to see a better, a stronger, a more prosperous Oakland, and these are the seeds that we are planting today," Thao said.
She rejected the idea that the sale was a Band-Aid for the city's troubles and said the sale proved investors are still interested in the Oakland market.
"Many people thought institutional capital was fleeing Oakland," she said. "It's not the case."
And in an interview later with KTVU, Thao said one of her next priorities is to use that capital to develop the Hegenberger corridor.
The area by the now-closed Hilton Hotel on Hegenberger Road has abandoned buildings and blight.
The Coliseum marks one end of Hegenberger Road, which ends at the Oakland airport, about six blocks down.
This corridor has been the backdrop for many of her critics, as at least seven restaurants, like Denny's, Black Bear Diner and In-N-Out, and the Hilton Hotel have shut down in the least couple years.
Some have blamed crime and blight in the area as reasons for the companies' departures. There are many abandoned storefronts, some riddled with graffiti along this strip of street.
"I think that this is the catalyst to really drive that development on the Hegenberger corridor," Thao told KTVU. "I mean, this is the most developable land in California. Once we start developing, that whole corridor changes. And it changes in a great way where we can actually receive all of those tax revenues into our general fund and pay for more officers."
Thao said she hopes to keep the current Oakland police staffing at 678 officers, and if Measure NN passes, the minimum threshold for police officers would be 700.
On Tuesday, the Oakland Police Officers' Association still blasted the sale of the Coliseum, rejecting the city's reliance on the one-time boost of money to bolster its budget this year, rather than making comprehensive changes that would ensure short-term and long-term stabilization to the city's budget.
"The Coliseum deal buys the city a few months' reprieve and the one-time revenues will soon dissipate," the police union's president Huy Nguyen said in a statement.
Thao did not give a timeline for when the Hegenberger corridor would be developed.
KTVU anchors Alex Savidge and Heather Holmes, and reporter Tom Vacar contributed to this report.