I had heard about A's plan to move to Fremont in Pacific Commons area for some time. I was wondering why do they want to move to Fremont and disturb the peace and trenquility of this relatively small city. Why don't they move to San Jose? Ball parks are good for larger cities - like, San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland. Larger cities generally  use them to rejuvinate their rundown areas, for example, Giants stadium in San Francisco. I thought A's ball park in Pacific Commons will create traffic gridlocks on freeway 880 which is already crowded with high volume of traffic. Recently I came to know that ProLogis which owns the land at Pacific Commons has refused to sell the land to A's based on the objections from three of its major retail tenants. While I am not surprised to know about refusal of ProLogis, I am shocked to hear that now A's are focusing their efforts to build the ball park in the Warm Springs district. The idea of building a ball park so close to the prime residential area is so horrible that I wonder why the City Council does not reject this idea right away! If ProLojis listens to its three tenants why does the Council not listen to thousands of home owners of Fremont?

Understanding my frustration, one friend of mine recommended me to attend a private meeting where A's representatives made a presentation about the proposed project. I attended the presentation and came out even more frustrated. They are good sales persons and they presented the project with a lot of glamorization, down playing all its negative impacts. They talked about how beautiful it would look and how millions of dollars would be generated by Fremont businesses because of the ball park. The ball park would have a capacity for 32,000 seats and parking spaces for 9,000 cars. Imagine 9,000 cars on freeway and the streets around the park! They said no problem, BART would take care of it and Fremont Blvd. at highway 880 does not have much traffic and it would easily absorb it. I thought they must have seen Fremont Blvd. on weekends!! They did not talk about the traffic from highway 680.

Answering a question about noise they said the noise from the ball park would blend into the noise from freeway 680. Imagine 32,000 people shouting with full volume and the loud music from the organs! The evening games will last till 9:30 or 10:00 pm. Many people, specially small children, in the nearby homes would not be able to sleep.

They will charge $30+ for parking at their facility. The people coming to attend the games would have temptation to find free parking in the streets around the ball park. However, not to worry! They have found the solution. If their parking spaces are full they will make $270,000 as parking fees. If people find free parking in the streets, they will loose this amount. So, they will spend few bucks out of it to hire security guards who would cordon all residential areas around the  ball park, establsih the check posts and allow only the residents to enter the area. You will have to wait in a long line of cars to enter your neighborhood and if you forget for ID card you may be sent back. You may return to your home after the game! If you want to have a birthday party on Saturday evening you may have to take prior approval of A's to allow your guests to enter your neighborhood! If you think you are living in a free country, A's would provide you a taste of living in an occupied territory!! 

They did not talk about who would take care of those young people drinking beer all along the game and then driving home under influence of alcohol and littering and damaging the properties around the ball park. 

Then they said what if not A's! There would be some thing else at Warm Springs. No matter what there will be noise and traffic! Well, they do not see the difference between the crowd attracted by office buildings or shopping centers and a ball park!! How can you argue with these people? Say no to A's ball park in Fremont.