Oakland vice mayor Ignacio De La Fuente looks at the vacant lots surrounding the Coliseum and envisions an urban renewal center, one that is bustling with retail stores, condos, restaurants, maybe even an ESPN Sports Zone.

Lay aside all the talk about the Raiders hauling it back to Los Angeles or sharing a new stadium with the 49ers in Santa Clara or Hunters Point, if only for a moment. To this point, it's nothing but talk, and it isn't coming from the Raiders' lips.

The one big idea the Raiders have proposed is this: staying put at a new and vastly improved Coliseum as the anchor to a redevelopment project that pours jobs, revenue and tax money across the vacant spread between 66th Avenue and Hegenberger Road.

And, above all, it keeps the Raiders in the Oakland city limits, where they would just as soon stay.

"I think that's an area that has unbelievable possibilities," said De La Fuente, who has served 12 years on the Coliseum Joint Powers Authority, which runs the stadium. "We have the site. We have the land. It's definitely a doable thing. It's probably one of the few things that will work.

"Now, how are we going to get there is the question."

It's a nine-figure, if not a billion-dollar question, and it's one being posed in the midst of a dire economic downturn. But then, affordable options are few and everyone agrees something must be done.

Raiders owner Al Davis said last week he would like a new stadium, but the NFL's stadium seed money fund is empty. Neither the City of Oakland nor Alameda County - co-landlords of the stadium who share its annual $20 million bond debt - are in fiscal position to dole out the hundreds of millions of dollars needed to build a new Coliseum.

The league has suggested the 49ers and Raiders consider building a joint stadium, but that option has its own special set of hurdles.

This, and only this, much is certain: The Raiders' lease at the Coliseum, signed when they returned from Los Angeles in 1995, expires after the 2010 season. The Raiders asked for an extension in 2005 but stadium officials politely declined. The team has not requested an extension since and is not negotiating a new lease.

The Raiders are, however, showing a willingness to work with city and county officials on a solution that would keep the Raiders put - even if team officials won't forfeit leverage by saying unequivocally they will stay beyond 2010.

That counts for something from a franchise better known for suing its host city when it's not abandoning it. Consider this part of what Trask means when she says they "enjoy a good working relationship" with the JPA now that all their disputes, legal and otherwise, have been settled.

"We are keenly aware that in the current economic environment, creativity and ingenuity in fashioning a stadium solution is of paramount importance," said Trask, the business executive whom the 79-year-old Davis has put in charge of all stadium matters. She points to Baltimore, where the Inner Harbor revival has benefited from the Ravens' new stadium, as a working example.

"Stadium development has been used quite successfully to spur economic revitalization in other communities. ... We have suggested to the city and the JPA that we collectively pursue the idea of using a stadium development project as part of a larger, economic redevelopment plan in and around the stadium."

The A's proposed a similar plan in recent years but it didn't get anywhere - one reason they are trying to take that blueprint with them to Fremont.

De La Fuente hopes it will happen in Oakland yet, especially if that's what it will take to keep the Raiders unpacked. The city may not be rolling in surplus, but it owns some of the surrounding land. It also has authority (zoning, possibly eminent domain) that De La Fuente said "can be part of an overall part of crafting of redevelopment."

No one has any real idea who will pay for what. That's why both sides have already met several times with more sit downs to come.

"It should be on the horizon that we can put something together," De La Fuente said. "What it boils down to sometimes is all about the location and how we make sure the taxpayers and the citizens of Oakland are protected, while at the same time doing everything we can to retain the Raiders.

"If you just look at the Coliseum site, it's one of the best locations anywhere with BART, Amtrak, a highway, the airport."

Davis agrees on the location point, and no vote carries more weight than his.

Be sure, he wants a new stadium and complains that California has three of the four oldest stadiums in the 32-team NFL. He is open to discussing a joint stadium with the 49ers, and says he gets along well with their ownership, but he wants them to call him first - and only when their side figures out the where and how much of it all.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said it won't be easy for the Raiders to get a new stadium right now, even as he conceded the need was obvious when he visited the Coliseum in December.

"It's clear, and I think everyone accepts it, that something has to be done here with a new stadium at some point," said Goodell, who discussed stadium options with city and county officials during his visit. "Clearly, in this economic environment, it makes building anything more challenging."

That won't keep Davis from trying.

"The will to win is the fire that burns brightest in this organization and, if a new stadium can help us, then we'll look at a new stadium," Davis said when asked about a post-2010 home. "I'd like to be playing in a stadium or some new stadium that's started. I like this stadium right here. I think it's a hell of a location but I'd like a new (stadium).

"That's our goal."

E-mail David White at dwhite@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page D - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle