Report: Raiders in talks to demolish Coliseum, despite A's lease
Despite the Oakland Athletics closing in on a 10-year lease to stay at the O.co Coliseum, the Raiders are in talks to have the stadium demolished in 2015 to pave the way for a new home, according to a San Francisco Chronicle report.
A memo to Oakland city leaders details a plan that “stunned officials of the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Authority,” who are working on an agreement to keep the A’s in the ballpark for another decade.
"It will be critical to demolish the existing stadium in 2015" if the project is to be finished on time, Coliseum City attorney Zachary Wasserman said in a July 2 memo. Wasserman also noted that the Raiders “are making arrangements to play elsewhere,” according to the report, without any other specifics.
Coliseum Authority chairman Nate Miley, who is also the county supervisor, said that demolishing the stadium was "totally preposterous. ... We still owe about $180 million on the stadium.
"This is either smoke and mirrors, or they're on crack."
Coliseum City representatives, though, expect to reach an agreement with the Raiders by the end of the summer to open a new football stadium on the same site in 2018. The project is expected to include a hotel, restaurants, housing and stores.
The only facility shared by a Major League Baseball club and a team in the National Football League has been in business since 1966. The Raiders left Oakland for Los Angeles in 1982 and moved back to Oakland in 1995 after taxpayers paid for a refurbishment to the Coliseum.
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