I read the news originally sometime just day’s before this New Year’s I think? (With the story being originally published just after 9PM on December 23rd) As I was caught totally off guard by the story speculation that a wealthy private investor was studying the prospects of building a brand new dedicated sports stadium in hopes of luring an NBA Franchise back to “The Jet City,” a.k.a. Seattle. With his name having been confirmed as Californian resident Christopher Hansen, originally a native of Seattle who attended Roosevelt High School with the 44-year old Hansen now a wealthy San Franciscan Hedge Fund investor.
And I’ve read of others proposals, including a group with ex-Supersonics Gary Payton, “The Glove” as part of its investment group, who were trying to put something together, albeit on the town’s Eastside, in Bellevue I believe. And while news of this impending proposal has been steadily growing for awhile now, it was finally confirmed when King County Executive Dow Constantine and Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn held a press conference this past Thursday.
Constantine announced that the proposal called for $290 million private funding via Hansen’s investors - still unknown at this point, with a further $200 million being paid for thru public investments in the form of municipal bonds while Mayor McGinn stressed that the public would incur NO new taxes…
As Seattleites are rightly weary of funding any new stadium projects thru increased taxes, especially as our economy still sucks! Not to mention the slashing ‘N burning of public services current Governor Christine Gregoire is holding the legislature hostage to during their current legislative session…
Recall that Washington is the state where current US Ambassador to China and ex-Governor Gary Locke went ahead with the construction of Safeco Field after the voters had rejected the ballot initiative to build it!
Not to mention the taxpayers being stuck paying off the remaining six-years of the Kingdome which was slated as a 30-year venture, but was imploded six-years prematurely and wasn’t actually paid off until a few years after the completion of then Qwest Field.
Yet Hansen’s proposal claims that the city and county’s portion of the nearly half-billion venture would be capped at $200m with any and all cost overruns being put on his tab, along with the cost of buying a National Basketball Association Franchise, along with a National Hockey League Franchise as co-tenant of the new stadium which would be located in the Sodo neighborhood just south of Safeco Field.
While Seattle Councilmember Tim Burgess noted that Seattle currently has a $1.8-billion in deferred street and bridge maintenance backlog…
And thru the requesting of public information from the Mayor’s office, which had provided as little info as possible prior to the news conference; the Seattle Times did discover that McGinn had hired Carl Hirsh, a New Jersey Sports projects consultant last July at a cost of $19,500 per-month, along with an undisclosed Bond Agent while holding private talks in a Downtown Seattle Law Office last December.
And Mayor “McSchwinn” as he’s known by some locals has also stressed that the investors would be responsible for stadium upgrades along with being tied to a 30-year NO relocate contract while stating he wasn’t in the prediction business of which teams may be lured to the Pacific Northwest.
Yet, obviously the Sacramento Kings are the most logical choice, as Mayor Kevin Johnson, formerly known as ‘KJ of the Phoenix Suns is on the hook to provide the NBA with a funding proposal for a new arena on March 1st, while the league owned New Orleans Hornets could also be targeted, with the NHL owned Phoenix Coyotes being the hockey team on Hansen’s shopping list.
And ironically, if the deal was to come to fruition, both new Franchises would play temporarily in Key Arena, the past home of the Seattle Supersonics which NBA Commissioner David Stern deemed unsuitable for permanent league play and the catalyst for Clay ‘BA Bennett’s moving the storied four-decade team to Oklahoma, as the past Coliseum was deemed too small for the NBA market - as the new 18,000 seat stadium would take two years to build once given the green light…
Adding further irony to the temporary renaissance of the Coliseum is the fact that past Supersonics owner Barry Ackerley had once proposed bringing an expansion NHL Franchise to Seattle, while Key Arena was reputedly remodeled specifically not to encompass provisions for professional ice hockey being played there. As I seem to recall that Ackerley’s 1990 proposal included sketches of a new 50,000 seat stadium…
Meanwhile, reports claim that the Arena now barely breaks even… Even after Bennett begrudgingly paid off the city with a cheque for $45-million in order to not play out the remainder of the Sonics lease there before moving to Oklahoma in 2008, with the next step in Seattle’s Basketball dream being the studying of Hansen’s proposal by a three member panel that includes NBA Hall of Famer Lenny Wilkins who led the Sonics to their only NBA title in 1979 - while the NBA owners could decide the fate of either Sacramento or New Orleans at its upcoming June meeting…