Oakland is having a tough sports summer. San Jose should be paying attention. And taking notes.
Last week, the East Bay’s largest city watched its former NBA franchise, the Warriors, win a NBA title across the bay in San Francisco. This, just three years after the NFL’s Oakland Raiders left town. And the next few months will be fraught with crisis because the struggling-on-the-field A’s want the city to approve their massive $12 billion Howard Terminal ballpark venture — and are threatening to leave for Las Vegas otherwise.
The exits of the Warriors and Raiders may have been inevitable. But the A’s venue crisis did not develop overnight. It simmered and gurgled for years while Oakland and Alameda County politicos kept deflecting or hoping someone else would solve the problem. Now, things are finally boiling over.
Well, guess what? San Jose’s NHL hockey franchise is gurgling. It’s best for the city to pay attention to the gurgling before any boiling begins.
Here’s the issue: The Sharks are in a profoundly anxious state about what is to come in their longtime neighborhood on the west edge of downtown, which the city has cleverly labeled Downtown West. Over the next 10 years, Google will construct an immense new campus there.
Also, on adjoining property, transit agencies will build a mammoth new Diridon train station.
Also, a BART line extension will drill beneath Santa Clara Street.
Also, a proposed hotel and several other mixed-use buildings are planned northeast and northwest of the arena.
The buildout of all these projects, encompassing a roughly 18-square-block area, will literally surround SAP Center. The Sharks’ disquiet over all this has been characterized as a riff over available parking. Not true. To be sure, the Sharks are not thrilled about the surface parking being converted into garage parking, which is what will occur. But the team has accepted that reality.
Instead, here’s the Sharks’ basis of anxiety:
The last time that any undertaking close to this big happened in San Jose’s city center was during the 1980s, when the new VTA tracks were being laid throughout downtown. It was a civic travesty. Streets were ripped up. Access was blocked. Businesses were shuttered. Driving down any given street was a roll of the dice.
The Sharks fear a repeat outside their front door when the Google construction begins early next year. When the entire Downtown West development is completed — perhaps by 2035? — the result could be amazing and beautiful. But getting there will be ugly. Trying to get all of those moving parts to mesh and snap into place smoothly over the next decade will be like solving a giant four-dimensional Rubik’s Cube full of bulldozers and cranes and girders.
The Sharks, meanwhile, feel they have little control over the process as they try to operate their hockey team and their building. They have yet to see a comprehensive Rubik’s Cube attack plan.
San Jose officials say they are sensitive to the team’s concerns. In April of 2021, they announced that City Hall was “working on a construction mitigation plan” for Downtown West. Yet more than a year later, no overall mitigation framework has surfaced. There is paperwork. There are macro guidelines. But no micro ones. That’s what has the Sharks disconcerted.
What if there’s a Tuesday night home game scheduled … and a Google sub-contractor suddenly obstructs a key access street at 3:30 p.m. on that particular day for a pipe installation?
What if there is a NCAA Basketball Regional or Ice Show or Lady Gaga concert series on the SAP Center calendar … but that week, the Diridon transit hub project or BART staging requires Santa Clara Street to be entirely blocked off?
What if Google decides to break ground on the arena’s north parking lots, which the tech company now owns … and a dispute develops about how the arena entrance facing that property has to be reconfigured and rebuilt? And who should pay for that?
What if construction impedes access on three sides of the arena for an entire year or two … and forces hockey fans to make a long, convoluted detour to reach the only SAP Center entrance?
Eventually, crowds may just get tired of dealing with the festival of impediments — and simply stay away. And the team could think about exiting downtown San Jose. The Sharks’ lease with San Jose officially runs through 2040. But that’s cosmetic. The lease allows the hockey franchise to unilaterally opt out with 36 months’ notice.
It is important to note that team owner Hasso Plattner says he has no intention of doing that. It is also important to note that despite the Sharks’ anxiety and frustration, so far things have been publicly civil between all parties.
San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo has held hands and provided marriage counseling between Google and the Sharks. But behind the scenes, if you talk to those involved, it’s a very uneasy truce. The gurgling is audible.
And of course, Liccardo’s mayoral term ends this year. The Sharks’ gurgling will be inherited by the next San Jose mayor — either Cindy Chavez or Matt Mahan, who are opposing each other in November. Chavez and Mahan’s top two priorities will (and must) be crime and homelessness. But the Sharks’ gurgling should not be deflected or patronized.
True fact: Back in 1988 when San Jose residents faced a ballot issue over whether to finance a new downtown arena, 73,409 voted in favor. That constitutes more votes than both Chavez and Mahan received — combined — in the June 7 primary.
People in San Jose care about their arena and the Sharks. On event nights, nearby San Pedro Square is full of fans before they head to SAP Center. The arena concourse becomes an unofficial town square. It’s hard to imagine that stuff going away.
Earlier this spring, during a mayoral candidates’ forum hosted by the Sharks to discuss the Rubik’s Cube issues, Chavez called for a “downtown-wide” construction management plan. Mahan advocated a “point person” at City Hall to take the Sharks’ phone calls when necessary. Sounds swell. Also sounds bureaucratically vague.
Vague isn’t good. A modest suggestion: Before the Downtown West upheaval begins next year, the city needs to hire a dedicated “Rubik’s Cube Ruler.” As the complicated next decade unfurls, he or she can monitor the Downtown West landscape on a daily basis, with the power to temporarily halt a street blockage. Or briefly postpone a groundbreaking. Or convene emergency meetings between Google and the Sharks to resolve minor issues before they morph into major ones. To take care of the gurgling in real time when it surfaces.
Because come 2026 or 2028, San Jose does not want to be boiling like Oakland.
Mark Purdy is a former Mercury News sports columnist.
