Alysa Liu's Oakland Training Center Highlights the Importance of California's Defunded Redevelopment Agencies

Olympic gold medalist Alysa Liu’s Oakland training center is an example of a project that wouldn’t have happened without a now-defunded state agency, writes Oscar Perry Abello in Next City.

Abello describes the history of the Oakland Ice Center, noting, “Located just north of downtown Oakland, in what the city considers the Uptown Retail and Entertainment Area, parcel 8-641-8-5 was just a vacant, privately-owned lot back in 1991. But in that year, Oakland’s now-defunct Redevelopment Agency acquired it as part of a three-parcel transaction for $1.8 million.” The CRA signed a lease with a private developer who built and operated the facility, financed by $11 million in tax-exempt bonds. Today, the city owns the ice rink. 

A similar project wouldn’t be possible today, Abello points out. “The state of California contentiously eliminated its 400-plus local redevelopment agencies in 2012 as part of closing a $26 billion state budget deficit.” The agencies have not, advocates say, been replaced by anything similar to fill the gap they left, “both as long-term stewards of publicly-owned land and sources of local public dollars dedicated to local economic and real estate development.”