Seattle’s City Council passed a Memorandum of Understanding on Monday that would allow for a proposed $650MM renovation of Key Arena, making the building ready for an NBA or NHL franchise by 2020, NBA.com’s David Aldridge tweets.
The renovated Key Arena would hold 18,350 spectators for NBA games and 17,150 for NHL games. The city backed the renovation proposal of Oak View Group, headed by longtime sports executive/AEG CEO Tim Leiweke and entertainment mogul Irving Azoff, rather than billionaire Chris Hansen’s efforts to build a new arena, Aldridge adds (Twitter links).
This moves Seattle closer to being NBA-ready by 2020, Chris Mannix of Yahoo Sports tweets.
After losing its franchise to Oklahoma City to 2008, Seattle has been considered a likely destination for expansion or relocation. Commissioner Adam Silver confirmed that notion over the summer, saying Seattle “no doubt be on a short list of cities we’ll look at.” However, the city needs a suitable arena to make that happen and the memorandum puts the wheels in motion.
2020? If this were Japan it’d be done already. They got major highways rebuild in a month after a tsunami took it out.
Welcome to America where governments are forced to take the lowest priced contracts which usually leads to a construction group way over its head, budget and timeline.
Bring back the Kentucky Colonels too!