The Oakland Raiders have proposed renovations to the Oakland Coliseum as part of a larger development with retail stores, condos, restaurants. San Francisco Chronicle columnist Ray Ratto speculates that this is just a ploy to counter talk of sharing a stadium with the San Francisco 49ers.
SF Weekly’s Joe Eskenazi is skeptical as well, quoting our own Neil deMause to the effect that “football is a terrible anchor” for development. To Raiders CEO Amy Trask’s suggestion that the Baltimore Ravens stadium helped spur development of that city’s Inner Harbor, deMause replies: “Given that the entire inner harbor was developed five to 10 years before the Ravens stadium opened, that’s a neat trick.”