Hansen should reconsider his choice of arena location.

Not only is the area congested and filthy, but it's hard for suburban customers to reach.

Better would be Renton, Bellevue or even Issaquah and beyond...or, my favorite, a refurbished Tacoma Dome.

We have been investing billions in metropolitan rail to make it possible to integrate an entire region. It doesn't make sense to cram everything into 2 square miles of downtown Seattle.

Spread it out...and lets use all our "transit".

@1 What exactly is it that you don't get about "density"...?

@1 You think suburban consumers are going to have an easier time reaching Renton, Bellevue, Issaquah or Tacoma??

@2:

What do you have against the idea of living wage jobs in the city? Have you ever tried to drive on or off harbor island right before or right after a Mariners game?

Density is fine, but so is a diverse economy that provides living wage blue collar jobs, but to do this the infrastructure has to be there, and while there are a lot of places for an arena the port pretty much has to stay where it is.

In the documentary Fishermen's Terminal, about gentrification in another of Seattle's industrial areas, a person makes the observation that the U.S. is increasingly a society that strives to make life convenient for the wealthy at the expense of the working class and the poor.

I have no dog in this fight but I can see Goldman's point — had the SEPA process revealed truly horrendous terrible environmental impacts, the City could say "No Mr. Hansen, no can do at that site. Please find another." And Hansen (and the City) would have had less investment, both financial and psychological.

Yes realistically, the politics does indeed become more difficult with every step made by both parties. Theoretically the City can reject the site. But. Politics. Momentum. "I thought we had a deal." Makes City look bad -- won't go forward just because there are a few little tree-hugger problems.

How can an Appeals Court put its arm around the idea (reality, really) that environmental factors can in fact be nullified by actions which are so serious that no one in practice will actually examine environmental factors? There is no question that it happens all the time. I have no idea what a Court will say but it is an interesting question. And certainly does kill time. And in general 'Time is the enemy of the deal."

We can't force Hansen to build an arena where he doesn't want to build an arena, and we're certainly not going to build it ourselves.

Hansen's already put $50 million in, with the assumption that the city is going to give him a 300 percent return on his investment. Of course he's not going to build anywhere else.

Goldy, part way through the SEPA process the Mariners piced their preferred site, before that review was complete. Having a preference and forcing the council to vote "yes" is two different things. The council has retained the right to say "no". That's where Skullet Goldmark lost his case, and where he will lose his appeal.

"I'm betting if they took a vote today, the KeyArena location would beat out Sodo easily. You know, given the choice. A choice they don't have."
I would take that bet.
All of them know you can not have NHL hockey in that building as configured, that it would take a lot of money to recarve that bowl, and it isnt possible to play in that building as a temporary facility while at the same time rebuilding 1/2 of the foundation. So, no, Key Arena would not beat SoDo easily.
The other location at Seattle Center, on the otherhand, is a close second to SoDo. It's problems are obvious to anybody that's been to Seattle Center for a major event. The city council sold the parking with the practice facility property to the Gates Foundation while the Sonics had an active lease at Key Arena. It was a good move for the city, but not for having the NBA long term at that site. Then there is the Mercer mess. The Port bitching about traffic is laughable. Trying to mitigate the influx of traffic 82 nights a year around Seattle Center. The prescription would likely be. . . the same multimodal transportation options that currently exist in SoDo, that we have already paid for. And that's where the Seattle Center site becomes less competitive, available transportation and parking. Those things could be overcome, but I doubt the council and the citizens would want to participate in that much mitigation, and neither would their potential partner, Chris Hansen.
As the MOU states, it is an agreement conditioned on the acceptance vote of the city and county councils, and not Chris Hansen. That's where the skullet's case fails. The city could, indeed, say no to Chris Hansen.
That doesn't mean that nobody would ever choose to partner with the city and county at the Memorial Stadium site, it would not likely be near term, and the city could completely lose out to Bellevue at that point.
The opponent like to point out the financial substitution, the question for the Seattle City Council becomes, do those substitution dollars go into Bellevue or Seattle?
The Port, Seattle/Bellevue Times, Peter Steinbrueck, are all in favor of those dollars going to Bellevue, and that simply would not matter to the Port since they are directly subsidized by property taxes. Artificially depressing land values in SoDo may eventually be to their benefit, or the Mariners dreams if building a hotel and entertainment district if their own, but it would not help the city of Seattle.
The council can say no, but their is a lot more to this than what Chris Hansen wants.

Resistance is Futile.

You will be assimilated.

@1, does the name Glendale mean anything to you?
Suburban arenas, unlike a football stadium that hosts 8 to 10 events, need infrastructure that exists in SoDo.

Industry and The Port Of Seattle need infrastructure that exist in SODO

@1 what would it take for you to give up on trying to make people believe that Seattle (and cities globally) are some sort of failing non-event, despite a few thousand years of human history?

What metric? What statistic? Name it so we can find it for you.

@7 I would say that the council would prefer rebuilding KeyArena—given that option—because it would a) do away with the issues regarding the port, and b) do away with concerns about what we're gong to do with KeyArena after the new arena is built. In both those senses it is a superior political alternative.

But Hansen rejected Seattle Center for a number of good reasons.

Goldy: Peter Goldman here. You miss the point. there's a specific SEPA regulation that says BEFOFE an EIS is prepared, a govt agency cannot take any "action" that "limits the range of reasonable alternative" locations for a project. THAT is the law that was violated here. It makes no difference whether Hansen is not interested in any other site. The ONLY issue is whether the City and County LIMITED alternatives in the MOU by making the SODO alternative inevitable. If the Councils, after SEPA, decide to go with the SODO location cause that's the only site that gets the city a new arena, fine. But they can't make up their minds up front. This is not "just" a technical legal argument. How can any environemtnal review of the location be objective once Hansen (1) buys a team based on the SODO location; (2) gets NBA approval based on the SODO location; (3) designs a building. These are momentum-building steps specifically built into the MOU (Hansen's a smart guy; he knows the vote on arena location would be tight and he needed this momentum to guarantee a Yes to SODO vote.

But, ultimately, Goldy. one needs to ask: is THIS the way we want to build public projects that affect all of us? Do we want rich guys telling us where THEY want the publci facility to go. I wonder if you would be as supportive of this way to build public project were Hansen proposing to build a smelly rendering plant?

If the area has already been zoned as the Stadium District, how much more study is needed to determine environmental impact? It was zoned that way, and two stadia built there, for a reason - it's the fucking intersection of two of the nation's longest interstate highways! (plus heavy & light rail stations)

If a new arena is being built, it's being built in SODO. This lawsuit is all about the Port & ILWU making sure they get the badly needed and repeatedly promised transportation infrastructure improvements.

For those who tend to skip the unregistered comments, you should read #13 it's from Peter Goldman himself

#2

The part about it not sucking and making people miserable?

@12, that's true right up until having to pay for it, and attempting to run a business in it.
It would cost more to get the NHL on that footprint.

Goldy, the Key Arena beams being architecturally significant to some folks in this city, and present yet another obsticle in remodeling Seattle's pet dinosaur.

I've been looking at this issue for years. As long as people are comfortable with the idea that it would cost half as much more in construction costs and still not be a very good venue for the NHL, there is a Key Arena argument.
In practical terms, the city is not about to complely demolish Key Arena and build a new arena. There is an army of people in the dinosaur preservation society to ensure that Key Arena remains a pet white elephant.

As far as locations, Memorial Stadium would likely be as appealing to the city council as Key Arena given the fact that people like to cling to the nostalgia of a world's fair, even at the expense of the reality and utility of Key Arena.

If only Seattle Center had all of the transportation infrastructure and available parking in the evening that SoDo has during those long winter months. But it doesn't.

For fun, make a copy of the giant Sonics sign on the proposed new arena and show that to any city council person, and ask them if that sign could ever get put on the outside of Key Arena.
You'll see your "betting" odds plummet.

@13 The problem, Peter, is that even if they would go forward with an EIS without an MOU in place, the Sodo location would still be the only viable location, because that's the location where Hansen wants to build the arena. The range of reasonable locations has already been limited, regardless of the order in which we proceed. That's reality.

So, yeah, maybe you can kill the deal on a legal technicality—and if you can, congratulations on the great lawyering. But it's disingenuous to suggest that this is a battle to review alternative sites. Unless there is an investor willing to develop an alternative site, there are no alternatives.

It makes me sad that environmental review is so often used as a cudgel by political opponents of a project. It devalues the reviews so when legitimate concerns are raised they too can be set aside as political.

@14 Well, technically, it's in the stadium overlay district.

And I don't know that ILWU and Goldman are fighting for freight mobility improvements. Certainly, that was the game some port interests were playing. But I think ILWU & Goldman may be playing to block an arena in Sodo entirely.

@20:
Hansen is an investor, therefore he is likely pragmatic, if he can't get the SODO sight, and his goal is really to to bring the NBA to Seattle and not to drive industry out of SODO to pave the way for more gentrification, then if he can't build in SODO he'll find another spot.

@13, the council has yet to vote and take action.
There is a timeline here, one judge already explained this to you.
There is a precedent here, and you can thank the Mariners for that. The "possible" locations for Safeco Field, and anything like this, were identified (the east side was not included there, either). Prior to that EIS completing the Mariners identified their "preferred" site in SoDo.
In the Sonics arena we have 3 sites, and 2 locations, for ther review, and one of those sites is preferred by the private partner.
The councils retained the power to vote no, or vote yes, action has not been taken.

Obviously the solution is that we build a new NBA arena on Mercer Island and an NHL arena in Seattle in SODO.

@22 The point is that Hansen chose the site because it was the obvious site for a new arena. It wasn't much of a decision to have to make, really. It was just a matter of which particular parcels in that area he could buy up.

I see the lawsuit as a way for the ILWU, and the Port in general, to gain some leverage and make a strong claim as a stakeholder in SODO. If Hansen had included $150M in the MOU for funding direct Port access to I-5 & I-90, we probably don't see this lawsuit.

And that's really the issue here. If that kind of Port-to-Interstate access were already in place, and it should have been some time ago, then there isn't much of an impact to worry about. The need for that kind of infrastructure is glaringly obvious, no more so than during the major sporting event confluences that Goldman & others refer to. The primary reason it hasn't already happened is that the Port wants the city/county/state/feds to pay for all of it, who in turn think the Port is sitting on a huge pile of cash and can pay for it themselves. Throw in our region's penchant for spineless leaders, and you have a situation where the Longshoreman's Union has to sue a San Francisco billionaire to get a couple of highway ramps built.

@26:

Not every container goes onto the freeways, many go by rail, and not every terminal has direct rail access, so lots of TEU's wind up being trucked to the BNSF yard on Lander Street, and many containers both end up in and originate in the industrial plants or distribution yards in SODO itself, not to mention almost every grocery store in the area, every Costco, Walmart, Target ect...

Then there is the issue of people who need to drive in and out of the area for work, both stevedores and vendors, and at least some crew members.

Then there is the issue of gentrification of the industrial sections of Seattle, and there is no way that an arena will not add pressure to further gentrify the area.

@26, the Port gets more than $80 million dollars in direct tax subsidy to support multinational corporations. If the Port needs a road then they should use my tax money they are already taking to build one.
The Port really wants the state to spend a billion dollars on state route 519 so they can get the containers to the Kent distribution center, bypassing anything in SoDo.
$150 million isn't nearly enough, and I'm pretty sure the two existing stadiums contribute to the traffic, and the Mariners, for sure, have been doing everything possible to avoid taking any responsibility.
Not coincidentally, the Mariners started proposing their own entertainment district in SoDo before anybody had heard of Chris Hansen, and the Port didn't say anything about that (www.StadiumDistrict.org).
I guess the Port, Mariners, Seattle Times, and Peter Steinbrueck didn't mind as long as it was the "right" people making a profit.
They don't give a shit about those imagined jobs in SoDo. They had been planning their own development. They are just pissed off that somebody beat them to it.

Sorry about that, it isn't 519, but SR 509.
Here ya go.
http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Projects/I5/SR50…

The port is a public agency just like the City Of Seattle, every dollar spent in the port generates more money in the local economy, the fact that the two stadiums in SODO already play hell with traffic costing money and jobs is no reason to make matters worse with an arena

@30, a fact free complaint about traffic doesn't hide the fact that they get a boat load of money and the fail to invest it in what they claim they need so damn badly.
Their silence on the Mariners Stadium District "gentrification" speaks for itself.
They had a decade to do something about zoning in SoDo and did nothing about it. It was that important to them.
They are playing this for more tax money, and that's it.
Nobody takes them seriously, the sky is always falling, except their business plans that just require a little more tax money.
Larry Phillips is a fucking dumbshit for repeating that kind of fact free bullshit last summer.

And Larry Phillips' kid lost that election even though Larry sold out for them.

The Port has no Jurisdiction over city infrastructure, and no jurisdiction over city property, the port can only spend money and regulate Port Of Seattle property. Yes the Gentrification in SODO is bad, why make it worse?

The Port could and has purchased property. The SoDo property just wasn't important to them. And if its not their jurisdiction then fire the lobbyists that spend their time and my tax money on things not in their jurisdiction.
They are not going to have it both ways. It's either their business and they participate in the solution, or it isn't any of their business and they can shut the fuck up.
The Port want somebody else to pay for the things they claim they need but are unwilling to pay for themselves.
If we are not supposed to use the multimodal transportation infrastructure in SoDo then I think we should stop putting the infrastructure there.
If Hanjin needs to move their shit, then let those folks pay for contributing to the traffic.
The warehouse property Hansen purchased was hardly used for anything industrial, one company that printed barcodes that had planned to move. . . closer to their industrial customers that no longer exist in SoDo.
It's time the Port charged the customers what it costs to run their facilities and end their tax subsidy.

While the Port Of Seattle can purchase property outside of it's Jurisdiction, in the same way the City Of Seattle could buy property in Snohomish county, the port couldn't rezone property outside of it's jurisdiction, in the same way Seattle can not make zoning rules in Everett, and while can and has given money to both the City of Seattle and King county for infrastructure improvements, they can not arbitrarily contract to build separated grade crossings on city or county streets, that is the responsibility of the city and county governments respectively.

Moreover it's not the piece of property that Hansan wants to purchase that is the problem, it's the continued gentrification, with the resulting loss of living wage union jobs, that is the problem.

If Seattle really wishes to push the majority of blue collar jobs and workers out of the city fine, but they should be honest and say this, but before anyone jumps on that bandwagon I would suggest thinking about a bit, Seattle will be the worse for it.

Seattle lacks the charm and history of San Francisco, and the energy of Manhattan, so if Seattle wish to have a non-diverse economy it will wind up more like Sunnyvale