Now that they’re gone, will the A’s reshape West Sacramento?

ATHLETICS

Giants fans Ryland Stewart, 9, left, and Logan Barajas, 9, watch players before a preseason game vs. the Sacramento River Cats at Sutter Health Park, temporary home of the A’s. JOSE LUIS VILLEGAS — THE SACRAMENTO BEE

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By Annika Merrilees

The Sacramento Bee

WEST SACRAMENTO >> Beginning Monday, thousands of people will pack into Sutter Health Park on A’s game days, funneling new dollars into city coffers and local businesses.

Small business owners are making improvements in preparation for fans’ arrival. Businesses are applying for permits near the ballpark, and vacant ground-floor retail spaces are receiving new attention. The city expects in-stadium spending alone will boost sales tax revenues.

The team’s three-year tenure at West Sacramento’s minor league stadium will bring new attention to a city that the region’s locals have long regarded with expectations of growth. Over the past 30 years, business owners have bought restaurants, scooped up plots of land and built apartment complexes on the belief that West Sacramento is poised for more investment.

“We feel like we got in on the ground level,” said Clay Nutting, co-owner of Franquette, a wine bar and café that opened three years ago in West Sacramento.

Though the team that had called Oakland home since 1968 plans to relocate to Las Vegas in 2028, civic leaders are mindful that the city will be in the national spotlight until then. Their goal, said Mayor Martha Guerrero, is to keep fans in town after games and show the region what West Sacramento has to offer.

Long considered an industrial town, West Sacramento was already growing steadily. In 2023, the city’s population was 55,842 — up nearly 88% since 1990. Sacramento’s population, by comparison, has grown 41% in the same time.

Some business and government leaders believe the team’s presence will lend an additional boost. And they believe they can turn the three-year stint into long-term momentum.

“It does give us an opportunity to step onto this national stage,” said Traci Michel, West Sacramento’s director of economic development and housing. “We know it will increase exposure for our riverfront, for the Bridge District, for our amazing local restaurants and entertainment venues.”

In the 1990s, a group led by a former San Jose Sharks CEO Art Savage began rounding up financing to build a minor league stadium in West Sacramento, with aspirations to bring professional baseball back to the region after a 25-year drought.

When it opened, the ballpark — then known as Raley Field — was one of the most expensive minor league stadiums in the country. A little more than 14,000 fans showed up to the first game on a cold, drizzly Monday night in May of 2000 — more than double the crowd watching the A’s game at the Coliseum that evening, the Sacramento Bee reported at the time.

State Sen. Christopher Cabaldon said it felt like a breakthrough for the city, psychologically. People began to think differently about what might be possible.

“Suddenly peoples’ eyes were on West Sacramento,” said Cabaldon, who served terms as West Sacramento’s mayor between 1998 and 2020. “The direct economic impact of the ballpark in those early years wasn’t enormous. It wasn’t any better than having a supermarket on the same location in terms of tax revenue or jobs or anything like that. But it really did change the psychology and the investment climate — and the sense that we could do something big.”

Some West Sacramentans are hopeful that the A’s could remain in the region beyond the expected three years.

“The first attraction in Las Vegas is shows and food, followed by Raiders games,” said Jeff “Fro” Davis, whose Tree House Cafe is located less than a quarter-mile from the stadium. “When you look at the fan base we already have here, versus Vegas, where baseball would be, what, the sixth attraction?”

The A’s declined to provide an interview. The team has signaled its commitment to the move, and earlier this month announced players would wear a Las Vegas patch while playing in West Sacramento.

“We’re going to be doing things throughout the next three years that remind everybody, on a continual basis, that Las Vegas is our home, and that we will be here shortly,” A’s owner John Fisher said during a news conference there announcing the patch.

Some residents and officials have their hearts set on another oft-discussed possibility: That the region would be selected as a home for an MLB expansion team. The idea gained new relevance earlier this year when Kings owner Vivek Ranadivé pitched MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred on the Sacramento region during a visit here, as the Bee previously reported.

“This is a great opportunity for the region to audition,” Cabaldon said.