The city of Oakland is one step closer to securing a location for a possible new soccer stadium for the Roots and Soul, and a training facility for the professional teams.
The City Council unanimously approved plans on Tuesday to purchase the county’s interest in the former Raider’s training facility in Alameda and the “Malibu lot” near the Coliseum.
The county owns a 50% stake in each property, while the city controls the other half. This has created a headache for city officials who want to let the Oakland Roots and Soul soccer teams use the facilities and land. Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan emphasized that having the county divested from both sites will simplify long-term planning.
“This is another opportunity to take action that not only will build positivity and excitement and sports and engagement, but also will improve our budget and our fiscal situation,” Kaplan said.
The city has been trying since January to come up with a deal that would put the Raider’s training facility in the hands of ProLogis so it could lease it to the soccer teams.
The city wants to acquire the county’s interest so the entire property can be sold to the company for $24 million. The county and city would each receive $11,850,000. Prologis has agreed to a long-term lease with Oakland Pro Soccer, the Roots and Soul’s owner, to use the facility.
For the second deal, Oakland would acquire the county’s 50% stake in the roughly 9-acre Malibu lot for $8.7 million. Oakland will pay the county back with revenue generated by whatever the city does with the property—very likely a soccer stadium. The city is currently negotiating with Oakland Pro Soccer, which wants to lease the site and build an interim stadium where it can hold games starting in 2026. (In the meantime, the agency that controls the Coliseum voted last month to let the Roots and Soul play at the Coliseum in 2025.)
After months of delays and hiccups, Alameda County officials recently signaled their willingness to sell their shares of both sites to the city, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
City officials are eager to sign a deal quickly for the Raider’s training facility to strengthen their bid to host a soccer team during the 2026 men’s World Cup, which is being co-hosted by Canada, Mexico, and the United States. Oakland leaders believe hosting a team would result in a big economic and cultural boost for the city.
Kaplan said the city has an interest in untangling itself from the county when it comes to sports infrastructure.
“This approach that is recommended today to create a coherent, unitary deal avoids the problems that we’ve been having because of the separate deal on the Coliseum that the county entered into with the A’s,” Kaplan said.
The Oakland A’s baseball team is departing for Sacramento, leaving the Coliseum without a major sports team. The city is in exclusive negotiations with the African American Sports and Entertainment Group to potentially develop housing and commercial projects around the Coliseum Complex. But long-term planning is complicated because the county sold its 50% stake in the Coliseum to the A’s, and the team appears unwilling to sell to the AASEG.
Lindsay Barenz, president of the Roots and Soul, said it’s taken months of work with the city and county to pave the way for a permanent soccer venue in Oakland.
“We’ve had a lot of hurdles to overcome, but I think we have finally found a process that everybody is unified in,” Barenz said on Tuesday.
