Tagged: Seattle arena deal

Investor Chris Hansen says his group’s website has seen “stunning" interest from Seattleites who want to bring an NBA team to the city.

“We received requests for over 44,000 full season tickets, 268 suites and had 983 businesses interested in sponsorship opportunities,” he said, adding 32,000 of the requests for full-season tickets came within the first 24 hours after the priority ticket waitlist went live on sonicsarena.com.

Seattle has a new deal for a sports arena to house NBA and NHL teams. If the full council approves the agreement later this month, lead private investor Chris Hansen will then face the possibly tougher job of getting a deal for the teams.

The revised deal has been officially announced by members of the Seattle City Council and addresses concerns by the Port of Seattle and others that traffic generated by events there would clog up the SoDo area.

Seattle councilmembers Sally J. Clark, Tim Burgess and Mike O'Brien made the announcement.

Port officials say placing a new sports arena in Seattle's SoDo neighborhood without significant transportation improvements would be a "job killer." And one King County councilman wondered if area residents shouldn't vote on the idea.

The proposal to build a new sports arena in Seattle is now open to public scrutiny now that the City of Seattle and King County have formalized their agreement with lead investor Chris Hansen.  The next step is to gain approval from the city and county councils.

KPLU sports commentator Art Thiel explains why he thinks the plan should move forward.