Update 1:20 p.m The press conference held by Jean Quan and other city officials is now over. One site, called Victory Court near Jack London Square, we've already heard about. The other is a very ambitious idea to redevelop the whole area around the Coliseum with a new baseball park and convention center, shopping, restaurant, hotel. The city hopes that by having two alternatives, their plan will have the best chance of success with Major League Baseball. The plan is to have something ready by opening day, 2016.
The more immediate time frame relates to Major League Baseball's decision on whether it will permit the A's to move to San Jose, conflicting with the Giants' territorial rights, or whether it will require the team to stay within their current territory of Alameda and Contra Costa counties.
Update 2:55 p.m. We received a lot of tweets asking about the still-nowhere-to-be found environmental impact report for Victory Court. Here’s what Assistant City Administrator Fred Blackwell said in response to my question about it:
“No, it has not been completed, and as you know, the EIR process is one that requires a substantial amount public input and comment. And so the reason why you have not seen that is that we have not been aggressively moving forward with the EIR process.
That being said, one of the things that’s important to know – and I hope this doesn’t get too technical – is that at the Coliseum, sports facilities are an existing use.
So there is no need to start from scratch with an environmental impact review process there. And we have already, as most of you know, been moving forward with the Oak to Ninth project, which is already an entitled project there.
So this would be an EIR process, at Victory Court, that would probably have to start close to from scratch, but that we think would move fairly rapidly. If we get the high sign from anybody in Major League Baseball that we’re ready to go, we are actually poised to move forward and we have a schedule that we think could meet their needs.”
Update 4:25 p.m. Here's the full audio of today's press conference.