Lott investment group puts offer on coliseum land, Goodell believes “there’s a solution in Oakland”

There is some more positive news coming out of Oakland Tuesday. A report filed by the East Bay Times details a letter that was sent from the investment group headed up by former Raiders safety Ronnie Lott offering to purchase the Oakland Alemeda County Coliseum and the land upon which it sits.

In the letter of intent, Milwaukee sports, real estate and business law attorney Martin J. Greenberg said his clients, Stadium Real Estate Partners, LLC and its master developer, Egbert Perry’s The Integral Group, are offering to purchase the Coliseum to renovate it or build a state-of-the-art sports facility.

The letter obtained by this newspaper on Tuesday was sent to Mayor Libby Schaaf, Alameda County Supervisor Scott Haggerty, Oakland Councilman Larry Reid and other officials.

The bid for the land is currently at $167.3 million, or $250 per square foot, which is a fair market price for the land.

Previous signs of positive movement from the Oakland side of this came from the news that NFL VP Eric Grubman was attending the Raiders’ home opener last Sunday against the Falcons.

While he was in town, Grubman met with Oakland officials including Mayor Libby Schaaf — who also attended the game — as well as local business leaders along with Lott who also attended.

That same day, Roger Goodell was in Minnesota for the opening of the Vikings’ new stadium. He took questions from reporters and expressed optimism about prospects of the Raiders staying put, saying “I believe there's a solution in Oakland.”

Those words from Goodell are quite a contrast from how he spoke of the cities efforts to keep the team earlier this year. He called the plans “unsatisfactory and inadequate” and later lamented the lack of anything at all coming out of Oakland.

"It's something that we have not seen anything to my knowledge of a specific proposal,” said Goodell last May. “I don't know if it's a point of frustration, but certainly a point of information."

Goodell has been very open throughout this process that his first choice would be for the Raiders to stay in Oakland. When the team was left out of the bid to relocate to Los Angeles, he sent the Raiders away with an additional $100 million on top of the already $200 million in G4 loans the league offers teams for new stadium construction.

Then in June, he spoke with Mayor Schaaf about meeting with the Lott group and has been assisting in any way he can in facilitating progress in discussions. Grubman’s trip to Oakland was the latest in those efforts.

There is still, as always, the elephant in the room (so to speak) that is Lew Wolff and the A’s. Whether they would be part of this deal is not yet known, though Wolff told the East Bay Times he and Lott have been in contact.

Last year Oakland was dueling with the proposed stadium project in Carson California in a race to try and put something viable together for the Raiders. Oakland’s hopes fell through, but Carson was voted down by the NFL owners, giving Oakland another chance to get something done.

Meanwhile, Mark Davis wasted no time finding a new target for relocation and thereby leverage to ensure if Oakland has any ability to get something done, they better get on it.

With the Lott group making an aggressive push, could it wok out this time?