OAKLAND — The Roots SC, a popular men’s minor-league soccer franchise, wants to return to Oakland, the city that is represented in the team’s name and logos but not where it currently plays soccer games.
On Tuesday, city officials will begin reviewing the terms of an agreement that would allow the Roots to build a temporary 10,000-seat stadium on the largely unused Malibu parking lot, a triangular space directly adjacent to the giant Coliseum complex in deep East Oakland.
After forming in the late 2010s, the Roots emerged as a prominent community attraction, and until recently played its games at Oakland’s Laney College, south of Lake Merritt.
But earlier this year, the franchise skipped town to a stadium at Cal State East Bay, citing a last-minute snafu involving the turf at the Laney field. It now plans to remain a half-hour drive south in Hayward for the entire 2024 season.
In the meantime, the team hopes to work through negotiations with the city, plus the logistics of building a large soccer stadium and its accompanying infrastructure on an empty concrete lot next to the Coliseum.
“The negotiating timeline would hopefully move relatively quickly, and we’d get to a full lease sometime in the coming months so we can start executing plans for the Malibu Lot in 2025,” Tommy Hodul, a Roots spokesperson, said in an interview.
Following a discussion on Tuesday by a committee of City Council members, the city’s exclusive negotiating agreement with the Roots may be scheduled for full council approval in the coming weeks.
The Malibu Lot isn’t necessarily the Roots’ endgame, however. A decade from now, the team says it wants to construct a permanent stadium nearly double the size.
Whether the Roots can simply stay put when that time comes — and build its long-term stadium right there on the Malibu Lot — could be influenced by whoever ends up owning the Coliseum complex, which includes the ballpark, arena and all the parking space in between.
Last week, a local development group proposed to buy out the A’s half-ownership share of the Coliseum property, in hopes of acquiring the entire site for a large-scale transformation. The A’s rejected the offer, throwing the Coliseum’s future into limbo.
Technically, the Malibu Lot where the Roots want to build is not part of the Coliseum complex; it is behind the enormous “B” and “C” parking lots used by concertgoers and ballgame attendees at the site. The southern tip of the Malibu property neighbors a Denny’s location and barbershop.
At first glance, the vast, nearly-9-acre lot — which currently sits empty — does not scream live sports. But city documents describe how the Roots want to build modular structures that could be easily relocated, such as bleachers, porta-potties and shipping containers where vendors could sell food and merchandise.
If the property isn’t ready to go by the 2025 season, there’s another short-term backup option. At a meeting Friday, city and county officials who oversee the Coliseum will discuss in closed session whether the Roots could pay to use the A’s baseball stadium in the interim. But team officials have said their focus is on Malibu.
Key Oakland leaders, including Mayor Sheng Thao, have been keen to support the Roots’ goals, especially as the city endures a lengthy divorce with the A’s — its last major professional sports team.
“This (agreement) would help to ensure that (the Roots) remain rooted in Oakland with the associated economic activity and contribution to civic pride, provide a new venue for smaller-scale events, generate sales tax revenue for the City, and activate with a vibrant use a property that is otherwise used to park vehicles,” a city staff report states.
The temporary stadium would also host a companion women’s team, the Oakland Soul, which is owned by the same franchise and earlier this year began playing in amateur competition at Merritt College in the city’s hills.
Hodul, the Roots spokesperson, said the Soul are expected to enter a new professional women’s league in 2025. Both teams, if they played at the temporary stadium, may need to schedule their matches around live events and A’s baseball games at the Coliseum site.
The stakes are high for the Roots, which may not have the option of staying in Hayward beyond the 2024 season because Cal State East Bay is preparing for major construction at its football stadium.
Time will tell if the franchise — whose tree-themed branding plays on Oakland’s cultural insignia — will find a way back to the community that it once called home.
“There’s very little land in Oakland, and a lot of people,” Lindsey Barenz, the team’s general manager, said in an interview last year. “That makes real-estate development here complicated.”
Source: www.mercurynews.com