Oakland Coliseum sale nearing closure, financial stakeholder says

Well, stakeholders are hoping to close on the sale of the Oakland Coliseum soon. Yeah, it's a deal that has been in the works for years, as we all know, ever since the A's announced their intent to move to Las Vegas back in 2023. Let's bring you up to speed now. Back in May of 2024, Mayor Tao announced a proposal to sell 50% of the city's ownership in the Coliseum complex to the African American Sports and Entertainment Group. And in May of 2025, the city council approved changes to the transaction timeline to align with Alameda County's approval process. And in May of this year, the Alameda County Board of Supervisors voted on a restructured term sheet on the county's remaining financial rights. In July, the Oakland City Council approved an updated sale agreement with the Oakland Acquisition Company. City leaders are eyeing a final handoff of the property before the end of this year. It's been a long road. Yeah, it has indeed. And for more on all this, we're joined by the gentleman who's been behind the money of all this, Jim Reynolds, the founder, chair, and CEO of the Chicago-based Loop Capital, which is the other entity with the AASCG and attempting to acquire the Coliseum site. Welcome, Jim. Thank you. It's good to be here. Thank you guys for having me. Yeah, you've been five years in the mix. It's been a long time. What still needs to get done before you close? And you told us off camera by the end of the year. Yeah, the closing date is no later than May, December 31 of this year. We pretty much right now are in the final details working with the county. The city's pretty much there. And so really making the county's documents look a lot like the city's documents because we're essentially buying the same thing from each side. So the documents should be identical more or less. And so that's not a whole lot more to be done. What are the biggest hurdles left to get over for this deal? I would probably say there aren't any big hurdles. It's just a series of small things that need to be done with the documentation. But in terms of the big hurdles, they've been ironed out. You could have invested your money anywhere. Why Oakland? Why are you investing in this property in the city of Oakland? You know, it's interesting. When I got the call some five years ago, it certainly didn't look as if it would be as difficult as it turned out to be. Sure. I couldn't believe that it hadn't been developed before quite frankly it's the probably the most attractive tract of land in California for sure and I think you guys are up here you'd probably agree among the most attractive in the United States the beauty the bay nothing there totally to be developable uh resurgence in the uh the bay area with AI it's really been I think the only reason it wasn't developed matter of fact i know the only reason it wasn't developed because a lot of the developers were nervous about the political environment in oakland this is a very interesting complicated transactions because you had two separate parties with the 50 percent interest in the same land it's not like one own half and the other own half it was it was an undivided 50 percent interest so you actually couldn't come in and develop anything unless let's say the city said okay you come in and develop. You couldn't do anything if the county didn't agree to it. Sure, you need everyone on board. And because it's identical, they had to agree to the same thing. Sure. Describe for everyone, what is the vision that you have for the Coliseum complex? What does this look like in the long run? I think this is going to be probably the most fun thing I've ever done, and I've done a lot of deals. If you've flown through New York, LaGuardia Airport, for some folks that were there, it was the worst airport in North America a few years ago. We went in as a developer in that. Now it's rated number one airport in North America. That was fun to do. I think this, the opportunity to develop this much land in the Bay Area with the transportation there, the airport there, the roads there in a city that I think is one of the most beautiful cities in america is going to be exciting because we have like a whiteboard to to say okay we're going to do the the arena is going to be repurposed and sold to OVG yeah yeah separate group operates the arena that's it got it but we still we're going to develop around it and then during the different phases we're going to have housing additional housing affordable housing market rate housing, hotels, office, restaurants, different entrepreneurial businesses, that site will probably be a magnet. What about the Coliseum itself, though? I mean, you know, everyone knows here in the Bay Area, the Coliseum is in terrible shape. Does it stay? It's at the end. And do you revitalize it, or do you... Yeah, here's what we've been told that Oaklanders want. They want a sports team there. Right, okay. The odds of us getting a professional baseball, football, basketball team like that are slim to none. But we can do soccer, which is big out here. Cricket is big out here, which we will probably do one or both of those for sure. Can we take and put them in a repurposed Coliseum site? Do we need to do something next to the Coliseum? What do we do with the Coliseum? what we know and we're committed to is having sports and then as we kind of move on with that we'll sort of work that through okay so you don't know whether the existing coliseum will will remain once once this project is done no we'll go that's still yet to be determined it is people are attached to that I mean they're members of course it's got a soft spot in my heart yeah you grew up in Chicago it's like they it's not Wrigley Field but to some people they would never turn out No, they would not know they would not so maybe you reimagine it. We're gonna that's probably what's gonna happen What's first what happens first once you take ownership phase one is the arena The arena is already operative operable and you have amazing sights there It's more profitable than when the Warriors were playing there And so now we're gonna bring in a world-class venue operator OVG that's going to bring in the world the probably best in class concert venue Live Nation and so what's going to happen now is many of the top acts in the world the Taylor Swifts the Bruno Mars all of the top acts will be there and OVG has committed and has said publicly that will probably be its flagship uh entertainment venue in the world it may be the best in the world but don't you compete with the Chase Center and the SAP Center as well right There's room. You could divvy it up. Yeah, you could divvy it up out here. I don't think that'll be much of a contest at all. When do you think this project is finished? It's going to be, because of phases, maybe five phases over time, we're estimating a 10 to 15 year build-out for the entire division, which is not unusual. A $3 to $5 billion investment over time. but it's going to be literally breathtaking for residents of Oakland the jobs the housing the growth in businesses the construction companies the entrepreneurs we've heard we've heard from so many of the residents here that um that that that have interest there what they want to see yeah and so it's uh i think they're going to see a lot of it I feel like you're going to be in Oakland a little bit I may get a place here I kind of hang out I've aged here. Let's put it like that. Appreciate the conversation. Thank you. Thank you for the time. Good luck. All right. Thank you.