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While Climate Pledge Arena is already hosting the NHL’s expansion Seattle Kraken and would be ready to roll for the NBA, another potential ownership group led by Chris Hansen (not the “To Catch a Predator” guy) has land for an arena near downtown. Most people I’ve talked to, however, consider Hansen’s effort an underdog and Climate Pledge the more likely future Sonics home.
The Gonzaga-Alabama game I attended on Saturday was held at Climate Pledge Arena, or as jilted Sonics fans know it, Key Arena. This is the refurbished version of the place the Sonics played until 2008, with a deeper pit dug into the ground next to the Space Needle to accommodate more fans, much wider concourses (the old ones were like subway passages) and several other nods to modernity. It was also my first visit to the building since 1998. It’s interesting because this is one of potentially two places a future Sonics team could play, if and when the league returns to Seattle. (Most league insiders consider it a mere formality that any NBA expansion would include Seattle as one of the teams.) While Climate Pledge Arena is already hosting the NHL’s expansion Seattle Kraken and would be ready to roll for the NBA, another potential ownership group led by Chris Hansen (not the “To Catch a Predator” guy) has land for an arena near downtown. Most people I’ve talked to, however, consider Hansen’s effort an underdog and Climate Pledge the more likely future Sonics home.
Chris Hansen’s bid for a new NBA arena in Seattle continued recently, after he bought up a pair of properties in the city’s SoDo neighborhood. His real estate adviser told the Puget Sound Business Journal that the entrepreneur has not given up on hopes of building an arena for a men’s pro basketball team. According to property records, Hansen bought two parcels of land in SoDo for almost $5 million. Any potential arena would still require Seattle’s City Council to sell him part of Occidental Avenue.
Chris Hansen and Wally Walker stressed that having an alternative arena option, or an “insurance policy for the city” as it was termed in the letter to Durkan, gives Seattle the best chance to sway the NBA to grant the city a new franchise. “We just want a team back in Seattle,” Hansen said. “If there’s a team playing at KeyArena, I will have my courtside tickets or third row tickets or whatever I have, and I’ll be the first one in line to buy them, and I’ll be here in my Sonic jersey cheering on the team.”
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Chris Hansen: “We’re not building the arena (in SODO) unless we have a team. If we have a team, it did not work at KeyArena for one reason or another. It’s not like we’re gonna build this building and then say, ‘OK, now we’re gonna go bid against them for an NBA team.’ That’s not what’s gonna happen.”
“I think there’s certain people that are spreading that in the local market,” Hansen said about the idea that the NBA has a problem with him. “I would just position this slightly differently. From the best of my knowledge, the NBA has absolutely no issue with us and I think (NBA commissioner) Adam Silver has said so publicly. So I would just take his comments at face value. Wally and I certainly have interactions with other NBA owners that we know fairly well, and I just don’t think there’s any evidence of that.
Chris Hansen and his investment team are taking another shot at getting the city of Seattle to approve measures that could one day lead to a new arena being built in the city's SoDo neighborhood to woo back the Seattle Supersonics. Hansen sent a letter to Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan and the Seattle City Council asking once again for the city to approve the vacation of a portion of Occidental Avenue inside the proposed arena's footprint.
Hansen said he has addressed concerns in the deal since their original proposal was rejected in 2016, including: promising no area will be built unless Seattle officially has an NBA team in hand, the arena is now 100 percent privately funded with no taxpayer dollars used, and $1.3 million for improved freight mobility in conjunction with the recently approved Lander Street Overpass.
David Aldridge: The vote puts the Seattle city government squarely behind OVG, headed by longtime sports executive/AEG CEO Tim Leiweke & entertainment manager/mogul Irving Azoff, instead of billionaire Chris Hansen, who has sought to build an arena in the South Downtown section of the city.
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An investment group that wants to build a sports arena for professional basketball and possibly hockey has offered to also rebuild KeyArena, the former home of Seattle's departed NBA franchise. The move Thursday by the group led by investor Chris Hansen is the latest in the long-running debate over building a new arena. Hansen wants to privately build a facility in an area that's home to venues for the Seattle Seahawks and Seattle Mariners.
More than five years into efforts to get a new arena built in Seattle, Chris Hansen remains confident that his goal of being the facilitator for getting the NBA and NHL to Seattle will ultimately be realized. Even if that means dipping even deeper into his pocket to offer up a privately financed facility. “We view that as a civic obligation to protect that and ensure that we do our part in bringing a team back,” Hansen said. “It was with that mindset, we’re not a for-profit enterprise that is attempting to generate a certain level of return on capital as we look at this project to justify it. We’re like, ‘What can we do just to make this work for the city and hopefully if we do that part, in the really long term it will work out for us.’ ”
Investor Chris Hansen stressed patience and optimism Thursday in his ongoing effort to build an arena to house a possible NBA or NHL franchise in Seattle's stadium district. Hansen's interview with The Associated Press represented his first public comments in nearly two years about the efforts. Hansen acknowledged his investment group was surprised by the City Council's decision last May to deny a proposed street closure that would have moved the project forward with some public investment.
Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson is joining the investment group looking to build a new NBA/NHL arena in Seattle's stadium district. Lead investor Chris Hansen said Monday that Wilson is "a young, smart and passionate entrepreneur," and is joining the group as a business partner.
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