Zennie62 talked with D’Sjon Dixon, the creator and architect of the exciting Stadium 365 Estuary Park Oakland As Stadium Proposal and his developer Rick Tripp in what is the first video interview and the longest one so far.

It’s also the first Zennie62 YouTube video that is a recorded three way conversation, thanks to Skype: D’Sjon Dixon is at his office in San Francisco; Rick Tripp is in Sacramento, and Zennie Abraham is in Suburban Atlanta Georgia.

D’Sjon Dixon is an architect with SGPA Architecture and Planning. His idea and drawings for a baseball stadium for the A’s has been in existence since 2013, but it took on steam when Dixon met and formed a friendship with real estate developer Rick Tripp, the Owner of Tripp Development, and the same man who put in proposals for stadiums in Sacramento and San Diego, as well as for Coliseum City, at least the A’s portion of it. Dixon’s stadium website is at Stadium365.com.

Dixon’s idea and plan is for a $600 million, 36,000-seat privately financed stadium at Estuary Park in Oakland, and at the same place controlled by the Brooklyn Basin Developers. Dixon says that he got a blessing of sorts from Signature Development President Mike Ghielmetti and an expressed interest to get involved from long-time Oakland developer Michael Baines. There’s a rub here, as Brooklyn Basin has broke ground, but Dixon says he has it worked out, and told me that Ghielmetti said he would not be a road-block.

The site itself may seem to be too small for baseball, as I first said to Dixon when we chatted online, but NewBallPark.org’s Rhamses Murcada has a great breakdown of Dixon’s approach here.

Rick Tripp’s name is not new in this issue: he made a proposal for a privately financed stadium for the A’s at Coliseum City. But it came with a novel financing approach that Tripp says is based on real estate brokerage fees, and was in part presented in blog posts over at NewBallPark.org. Tripp also used this plan in a presentation for stadiums in Sacramento and in San Diego for the Chargers. I’ll hold off on a critique here, as we’re going to talk on video again.

But back to Tripp, he is in the real estate business with his wife Leslie Dougherty, a realtor with Fusion Real Estate Network. Prior to that, both were involved with Cachet Realty Group Inc. in Nevada. I would not say Mr. Tripp is the finance guy, but more the classic real estate developer who sells the idea of a project to bankers. He’s got to have a credible plan by a credentialed architect who can make something that can be built before he can attract more money- that person is Dixon.

What is good is that this is a team up of two creatives who needed each other: D’Sjon Dixon’s plan is excellent, but cried for a development partner; Tripp’s plan was strong on financing (to a degree) but needed a good architect. As I told both, the purpose here is not to tear down D’Sjon Dixon’s work, but to make it better as that benefits all of us.

Political Outreach Still In Process

When Tripp first got involved, he took meetings with then-Oakland Mayor Jean Quan, Assistant City Administrator, later City Administrator Fred Blackwell, and City Administrator Deanna Santana; all are gone. Tripp and Dixon have yet to meet with new Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf or Oakland City Council President and District Three rep Lynette Gibson McElhaney, but more important, they have not yet had a sit down with Oakland A’s principal owner Lew Wolff. That is because they have spent much of their time honing and refining the Stadium 365 design that Dixon created. But now they say they’re ready to meet and more ready for prime time than ever before.

Stay tuned.