Seattle agrees to terms for Arena, NBA team in their future?

The Seattle area that developer Chris Hansen would like to build a sports arena in, just South of Safeco Field.

The Seattle (WA) City Council has tentatively agreed to financial terms with an investor group led by Chris Hansen to build a new $490m sports arena near Safeco Field.
Hansen’s group made concessions that will mean more out-of-pocket for them, but many believe that the concessions were needed to get the Council on board with the project. Hansen has said that his group would like to build a multi-purpose sports arena that can be used for NHL and NBA contests as well as concerts and other entertainment events, but there were concerns raised by the Port of Seattle and manufacturing businesses in the SoDo (originally meaning South of the Dome when the Kingdome was in Seattle, but since the demolition it has taken to me South of Downtown) area of Seattle that a new arena would cause traffic problems. The revised agreement has added $40 million to a transportation fund to make improvements to the SoDo area, as well as $7 million for improvements to KeyArena, where the former Seattle SuperSonics played before moving to Oklahoma City.
The City Council is expected to announce the terms of the agreement Tuesday, Sept. 11th. After the agreement is voted on by the full City Council, Hansen will contact the NBA to inform them that Seattle is interested and ready for another NBA franchise. They are also looking to secure an NHL franchise to be housed in the Arena.

1 Comments

  1. willy on September 11, 2012 at 23:40

    Seattle needs that to relaunch the high level sports in the city.

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