What looked like one of the last necessary steps towards having a shovel-ready arena in Seattle took a hit on May 2, 2016 when the Seattle City Council unexpectedly voted 5-4 against the vacation of a one-block street in the SODO neighborhood, which was needed for the arena.

Chris Hansen, the prospective owner of the future Seattle SuperSonics, can’t build the arena without the street vacation. The street, or more appropriately, the alley, runs right through where the arena would sit.  The Port of Seattle provided the loudest opposition to the street vacation, claiming vacating that one block and allowing construction of the arena would kill several maritime jobs.

Follow that logic? If yes, please fill me in. The block in question runs just south of Safeco Field, and is not used by the Port of Seattle as much as the entity claims. How the massive delays in completion of port jobs would occur remains a mystery.

Also noteworthy, opposing the vacation was none other than the Seattle Mariners. Besides the obvious hypocrisy of one team trying to keep another out of the market, it should be noted that to build Safeco Field, the Mariners needed a block of the same street vacated as well.

One more clarification for the record, Chris Hansen was actually going to pay the city of Seattle fair market value for the vacated block ($18-$20 million), so it was a street sale – not a giveaway.

The SODO Arena Deal 

Just a quick outline of the deal negotiated between the city of Seattle, King County and Chris Hansen in 2012 before we jump forward to today: After much back and forth with Hansen continually sweetening the deal with several concessions, the three parties agreed to a legally binding memorandum of understanding that would provide for up to $200 million in public funding for an arena that houses both NBA and NHL teams ($125 million for NBA only), with the debt payments serviced solely by revenues generated by the arena.  The Hansen ownership group also put a guaranty in place in case of any shortfall from revenue for the debt payments, plus Hansen himself provided a personal guaranty. And as mentioned, Hansen agreed to make an overwhelming number of additional contributions, including the building of sidewalks, significant financial contribution towards a street overpass, building a parking garage, among other items. More specifics can be found here. 

Seattle City Counsel Dissenters’ Reasoning, Plus the Problems with Such Concerns 

Several stadium financing experts across the country have hailed the SODO arena deal as one of the best private/public partnership deals ever in place for a stadium/arena. But the city counsel vote failed to pass because the dissenting council members couldn’t get over their concerns that 1) a refurbished Key Arena may still work for the NBA/NHL, 2) the SODO arena would cost the Port of Seattle jobs, 3) traffic would balloon with the arena in place and 4) without an NBA promise of a team to Seattle, the arena may be built without a tenant. Unfortunately, these concerns are shortsighted, and the decision to turn down the street vacation to pave the way for the arena was based on faulty logic.

Quickly breaking down the faulty logic with each of the concerns above, let’s begin with Key Arena. Three problems (at least) exist with using Key Arena as a deterrent to build the SODO arena. First, the likelihood of Key Arena being successfully retrofitted in a manner that would please both the NBA and NHL, along with potential team owners, is remote. The problem with Key Arena to this day is that the footprint is too small and there’s physically limited room to expand the footprint extensively further out. This does not even touch the costs associated with attempting to massively expand the footprint. The key takeaway here is that there’s no guarantee Key Arena can be made into a satisfactory building for the pro leagues. Plus, who’s going to pay for this? Not one individual, group, entity, etc. has stepped up to indicate that it will pay for a substantial Key renovation.

Let’s next tackle the second and third concerns since they intertwine. The position that building the arena in SODO, and specifically vacating the street needed for the arena, will kill off port jobs has no basis in fact. The theory the port has screamed is that increased traffic will be the death knell for port jobs, as the additional traffic will cause delays, which in turn will drive off business. What? Without data to support this, the arguments of the port amount to bullying rhetoric and nothing more. The unfortunate part here is that the segment of the city council that voted against the arena accepted this rhetoric as fact, despite any proof to back up the claims. The Washington State Department of Transportation, on the other hand, showed evidence that the port’s argument was faulty – the WSDOT conducted extensive research on the matter and published its results, while it also filmed the street to be vacated during different hours of the day and found very minimal traffic on that road. But the Port yelled and screamed and threatened lawsuits, and the Port won the PR battle. The kicker in all this is that the traffic near Key Arena would be atrocious if the Key was renovated. Traffic was a nightmare at the Key during prior operation, and now add to it additional traffic accumulating in the area since then, plus the lack of solid public transport access in the area. Light rail is fifteen plus years out from having a station by Key Arena.  Further, add to this the fact that several parking spaces previously available in the nearby are no longer in existence, and you’ve got a bushel full of problems.

The last argument the dissenting city council members held was the lack of a promise of an NBA team. Why allow a street vacation and a subsequent new arena when the NBA has made no promise of a team? Well, let’s attack this problem with logic – Chris Hansen won’t build the arena without a team, because it won’t pencil out financially to do so. This concern was much ado about nothing. Instead, the chicken and egg issue remains at large – no arena since no team, and from the NBA’s vantage point, no team since no shovel-ready arena.

Where the Situation Sits Now

The situation gets complicated from here. The NBA has not shown any inclination that it intends to expand in the immediate years, and no team appears to be a relocation candidate in the near future. Chris Hansen doesn’t have a critical piece of land he needs for the arena due to the city counsel vote. The memorandum of understanding, which provides for public funding, expires in November 2017. Further, the city counsel has indicated a lack of interest in extending the MOU. Without an extended MOU, the arena would need to be fully financed with private funds. One final key issue to mention here – many Seattle hoops fans have begun to lose hope, and rightfully so. They have had the frustrations of the almost Kings’ move, the success of the Thunder, the NBA’s lack of concern for the city and now the city council likely killing the SODO arena.

From where things sit today, the questions that need to be answered are:

1) Can Chris Hansen work out a revised deal to get a successful Seattle City Council vote for the street vacation?

2) If the answer to 1 is no, is Chris Hansen the right person to get the ball into the bucket and bring the Sonics back?

3) Can a legitimate arena deal be worked out elsewhere in the Seattle area (possibly Bellevue, Tukwila or another non-SODO Seattle location)?

4) Can anyone influence the NBA to make a commitment to returning an NBA team to Seattle in the near future?

The short answers to questions 1 through 3 are:

1) Probably not without the promise of an NBA team.

2) Probably not if SODO is out of the question.

3) No one knows. 

Question 4 is where I believe the key to the solution lies, and should be the focus of all interested parties. From listening to the dissenting council members’ outtakes, at least a few of the no votes would have flipped to yes IF an NBA team had been promised to Seattle. The situation flips on its head if the NBA comes to Seattle and says “Here’s your team, provided that you pass an arena deal within X days”.  You think the city council, under fierce pressure not to threaten the Sonics’ return, would reject the street vacation? I think not.

The Most Critical Next Step for the Sonics’ Return

In any form, the Seattle NBA movement needs strong leadership at this critical time to work directly with the NBA to lay the groundwork for the NBA’s return. Chris Hansen has largely been silent over the past year, and especially so following the rejection of the street vacation. The Sonics’ movement needs the exact opposite from him right now. More specifically, we need those individuals with connections to other NBA owners and Adam Silver to communicate the critical juncture in which the Seattle arena sits.

According to a radio interview, NBA Hall of Famer Spencer Haywood explained to local host Dave “Softy” Mahler that Adam Silver told Haywood directly that the NBA wants to get back to Seattle as soon as possible, and that it wants to do right by the city. Yes it’s a game of telephone, but if Mr. Haywood’s comments are true, then let’s not waste another second to get the message to Adam Silver that time is of the essence. But someone of high stature and means needs to step up ASAP for Seattle and serve as the muscle of the Sonics’ return. 

Heavyweight allies for the return of the NBA to Seattle could include Steve Ballmer, Lenny Wilkins, Gary Payton and others, including prominent Seattle businessmen who have an interest in being part of the Sonics’ ownership group. In this case, I’m defining a heavyweight as someone who potentially has significant influence with the league and the owners. There needs to be some combination of a strong Seattle ownership group working with NBA liaisons to push the message forward to get a promise of a team, accompanied by a timeline for this promise.

The initial hope was that the Sonics’ return would mirror that of the NFL’s Cleveland Browns – immediate promise of a new team, with the reincarnated Browns returning to the field three years later. That obviously didn’t happen, and we’re now in Baltimore NFL territory – twelve years without the NFL. As the Sonics have been gone from Seattle for eight years, time is ticking on the Baltimore timeline, with the Los Angeles story the next one up (twenty-one years for the league to return). Let’s get this resolved in the Baltimore NFL timeline rather than Los Angeles.

From the Seattle community, Brian Robinson and the SonicsRising crew have provided great leadership for Sonics’ fans in connection with the team’s eventual return. Now it’s time for those who can help with the NBA’s return to Seattle to step up and make it happen. The SonicsRising community shouldn’t have to parse every statement that Commissioner Adam Silver makes to see if there’s a thawing on the no-expansion mantra the league currently has. For those who have not checked the site out before, you should do so. This is the only site on SB Nation dedicated to a team that currently doesn’t exist. The relentless passion from this crew through the few highs and many lows has been nothing short of remarkable. This group, Sonics nation and the rest of the pro basketball community need the Sonics’ return to happen in short order. The Seattle NBA movement needs to galvanize and to lay down the tracks with the league to get back what rightfully belongs to the community – the Sonics. First step, it needs a leader with strong NBA connections to take this on as the face and backbone of the movement, and not relent until the job is done. Who is this going to be? Hopefully whoever is up for the cause will identify himself or herself soon.