NHL Welcomes Expansion Application from Seattle

 Finance, MOU, Other Arenas  Comments Off on NHL Welcomes Expansion Application from Seattle
Dec 082017
 

After 5 long years of being a “tag along” on the SoDo arena plans, local NHL fans have something to rejoice over.  The NHL Board of Governors’ meeting was occurring this week and Seattle’s new MOU with OVG was an inevitable topic.  The board discussed Seattle’s new arena plans and welcomed an application, with a $650 million expansion fee.  Fortunately, OVG has some fairly deep pocketed friends who have been interested in owning a NHL team.

The local reaction was enthusiastic (even if old-school NHL gear was bright enough fans could still make out players through a dense fog and cataracts).

The NHL is so confident in the bid the group authorized a season ticket drive similar to what happened in Las Vegas. Unlike prior non-league-sanctioned ticket waiting lists concerning the NBA’s Kings, the Las Vegas NHL ticket drive involved a deposit.

All of this bodes well for locking in a good deal on a new arena in town and having a professional sport to occupy it soon.  The NBA is still elusive, but at least one team will reduce the number of people intent on public pillory of Leiweke.

OVG CEO Tim Leiweke going as far as asking Seattle to hold him accountable.

“If we don’t have a franchise a year from now, they should take me and put me on top of that arena and while they start tearing that arena down, they should let me dive into the middle of the rubble because I haven’t done my job,” said Leiweke this week.

Added below the break are roundtable interviews put out by Sonics Rising with John Barr, Chris Daniels, and Brian Robinson as well as a “mega fan meeting” with OVG’s Leiweke held after Mayor Durkan signed the MOU.  Continue reading »

Mayor Jenny Durkan Signs OVG MOU, Making MOU Officially a “Go”

 Finance, MOU, Other Arenas  Comments Off on Mayor Jenny Durkan Signs OVG MOU, Making MOU Officially a “Go”
Dec 072017
 

The MOU for a New Arena At Seattle Center, built and operated by Oak View Group, was officially signed by the Mayor and Tim Leiweke in a ceremony at the KeyArena on Wednesday December 6, 2017.  The event included some scolding (but no 4 letter words) of reporter Chris Daniels (later gifted Sonics socks), questions about next moves to acquire teams, questions about “other competing arenas,” and a lot more joy than has been seen at many other press conferences in Seattle of late.  The actual signing of the document produced some special “gift” pens from Mayor Jenny to CM Juarez and CM Bagshaw, although Tim was clearly less focused on rotating through ceremonial pens and more focused on getting on with building the arena/acquiring teams.  Good man, Mr Leiweke.

Video of the press conference and an embedded version of Chris Daniels and Chris Cashman’s The Next Best Podcast episode about the “OVG Enthusiasm Gap” are below the break.  The news that came out from the NHL board of governors the following day is closing that gap, rapidly.

Still unclear is if the Seattle City Council is going to exempt the OVG MOU from I-91 (SMC 20.47) or if the city council will actually try to figure out a calculation for the “cash value” of an arena lease for 55 years to determine I-91 compliance.  While I have faith that the “cash and property” being leased will be a gain of significant value to the city, the calculations are messy and easily challenged in court.  Prior coverage has suggested the council considered explicit exemption in the MOU but the version signed does not reference I-91 or the Seattle Municipal Code Section 20.47.
Continue reading »

New Arena at Seattle Center / OVG MOU Approved 7-1 by Seattle City Council

 MOU, Other Arenas, Property  Comments Off on New Arena at Seattle Center / OVG MOU Approved 7-1 by Seattle City Council
Dec 042017
 

King5’s Chris Daniels has a thorough write-up of how the Seattle arena process has shifted from SoDo to Seattle Center, culminating in the MOU with Oak View Group being approved by the Seattle City Council.  The audio segments are particularly delightful, hearing a city councilmember fired up and discussing how she developed an arena plan while a few members of the public denigrated her character.  She clearly lays out the counter-argument that the SoDo MOU played out but ArenaCo failed to deliver on their duty, the NBA team (although the wealthiest member of ArenaCo did go rogue and buy a NBA team in So Cal).

The Daniels article runs down how the Seattle Center arena proposal was carefully crafted with city councilmembers working on their favored topics, ultimately crafting the MOU draft that was approved by a 7-1 vote today (councilmember Lorena Gonzalez not being present due to prior plans for her wedding).  Amazingly, a usual contrarian on the city council, even Socialist Kshama Sawant voted to sign onto this public-private development involving 1%’ers.  Testimony surrounding her vote made it clear that she was able to secure enough labor provisions that she wanted to see this MOU go forward.

Audio segments and the Dec 4 2017 Full Council video after the break  – Continue reading »

Seattle Center Arena Replacement By Oak View Group In December 2017?

 Finance, MOU, Other Arenas, Property  Comments Off on Seattle Center Arena Replacement By Oak View Group In December 2017?
Dec 032017
 

After a long RFP process involving multiple bidders (although Seattle Partners/AEG withdrew when their proposal involving city $250 million in city bonds was not well received) and some additional negotiation, it appears that Seattle’s quest for a new arena suitable for the NHL and NBA is coming to a close on Monday. This has caused some gnashing of teeth among those devoted to Chris Hansen and his plans, which we’ll save for later.

Seattle Center Arena Has Needed Renovation and Waiting on ArenaCo Isn’t Forward Progress

The KeyArena at Seattle Center has been a looming white elephant for the city, thanks to demands of the prior NBA franchise ownership to refurbish the facility with a questionable configuration for hockey. Some reports have suggested that the prior ownership was happy to explore NHL teams and then scuttled that plan in a scorched-earth move, capped by the offset ice re-build. The AECOM report of KeyArena options that the city commissioned outlined multiple scenarios, all requiring 9 figure investments with a future profitability very uncertain, particularly if another large arena is built in the city. At the same time, the Seattle Center arena’s city ownership requires the city make some plans for major investments to keep up with amenity standards, even as a concert, WNBA, and college basketball venue.

AECOM’s report included rough estimates of project costs to repurpose KeyArena, all well into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Projections for Key to be self-sustaining were widespread. A2 required no competing large arena in town and B2 required the NBA to play in the renovated KeyArena space

Additional details about the options from the AECOM study are also below.

Details on how the KeyArena would be reconfigured under the scenarios analyzed.

The basis of AECOM’s estimates included modest investment (A1+2), significant renovations preserving pro-sports capacity (B1+2), significant repurposing into multiple entertainment venues (C) and even “something else” (D).

Under both AECOM scenarios with an arena also built in SoDo (A1 and C), the Key projects loses money. Only the Key as the primary arena in town (A2) or with a NBA tenant (B2) would have projected profits. This doesn’t bode well for the future of the Key if the ArenaCo group converts it into a secondary venue. Even the configuration ArenaCo proposed in September as a secondary venue is different from Scenario C, lacking acoustically divided stages and with a lower maximum capacity, which could be even less profitable.

ArenaCo’s Composition and Faith In Their Ability to Complete Project Has Changed

While the SoDo group has done an admirable job of crafting a good deal for the city, re-authorizing the city’s partnership with the ArenaCo group without a plan to actually build an arena ahead of a sports franchise would be turning our collective backs on going forward with having a new arena in Seattle. ArenaCo’s named investors, with the loss of the $37B investor, no longer have the majority of the capital once advertised for the expensive project of building an arena with mostly-private funds and purchasing professional sports team(s).

KeyArena Rebuild RFPs Are In

 Other Arenas, Property  Comments Off on KeyArena Rebuild RFPs Are In
May 012017
 

KeyArena RFP Responses

The KeyArena RFP announced by Ed Murray back in October 2016 has had more detailed, although still annotated as “redacted for public,” responses.  The AEG/Seattle Partners response is a 6 page executive summary and a 690 page full proposal pdf that includes letters of support from other NBA team owners.  The Oak View Group has submitted a 3 page executive summary and a 108 page proposal.  This is going to take some time to comb through, so I’ll add more details when time permits.  I added the Key RFP page to the list of links above.

King5 has a story that summarizes some details of the proposals, which can give you some inspiration on what to look out for.

Russ Partners with SoDo Arena Group (ArenaCo) “not just for PR”

 Other Arenas, PR Campaign  Comments Off on Russ Partners with SoDo Arena Group (ArenaCo) “not just for PR”
Nov 142016
 

Chris Hansen’s “all private, but not really” arena plans needed to be re-injected into the news cycle a bit more and so there’s this…

Bringing local celebrities into ownership groups is not exactly new, of course.  Will Smith owns a bit of the 76ers, Jay Z owned a tiny bit of the Barclay’s Center and Nets, Fergie and JLo (and many others) own a bit of the Dolphins, etc.

But, as far as generating local excitement for Hansen’s plans vs an almost-RFP’ed “something” to the KeyArena, this bit of news may be exciting enough to be worth giving Russell Wilson a chunk of the arena/team, if it happens.  (As these are usually private transactions, we have no idea if Russell becomes a partner as payment for endorsement services or if he signs a check from his personal bank account and the percentages involved have not been disclosed).

Now if only Hansen could find a NHL team not too cheap to participate in his privately financed arena.  Oh bother.

The Coyotes and Arizona State University announced that the Coyotes have entered into an exclusive negotiation agreement with Catellus Development Corp., ASU’s athletic facilities district developer, to work towards the finalization of a new arena and commercial development project within the 330-acre district along Tempe Town Lake.

Correction:  An “unnamed, but familiar” source says it’s not just for PR, but won’t tell us any terms of the arrangement.  Not just a PR figurehead could still be “we’ll give you 0.1% of the arena if you schmooze the right councilmembers and talk up the deal on sports radio”.

A person familiar with the agreement told KIRO Radio’s Michael Lewis that Wilson independently approached the Seattle Arena partnership, making it a five-member team. Wilson is a financial investor – not just a PR figurehead – in the partnership, though the source would not disclose the terms

Hansen Seeks to Terminate MOU in SoDo, Build Privately and Scoops KeyArena Remodel RFP

 Finance, MOU, Other Arenas, PR Campaign  Comments Off on Hansen Seeks to Terminate MOU in SoDo, Build Privately and Scoops KeyArena Remodel RFP
Oct 312016
 

Chris Hansen and SoDo Arena

Chris Hansen re-emerged from the inky shadows and dropped a bit of a bombshell last week in a letter sent to the City Council, County Executive Constantine, and Mayor Ed Murray.  Hansen says his group no longer needs public bonds to assist with financing the arena (even though it wasn’t about the financing but a means to return tax money to the project) and is, instead, able to proceed with only future tax money being expressly abated.

We have concluded that a changed economic climate makes possible the private financing of the arena. For that reason, and to address concerns expressed by city council members, we would consider revising the street vacation petition to eliminate public financing of the arena. In such a case the MOU would be terminated and the rights and obligations of the parties under the MOU would end. The City and County would recoup the $200 million in debt capacity, and tax revenue streams generated by the arena would cease to be encumbered for arena debt service.

  • Approval of the street vacation
  • Granting of a waiver of the City’s admissions tax for the arena, just as similar waivers have been granted for the other sports venues
  • Adjustment of the City’s B&O tax rate for revenue generated out-of-town

The letter glosses over the fact that the admissions tax was the largest chunk of the money for the prior bond repayments and the other venues in town (Centurylink and SafeCo Field) did a tax-swap where the county collects admissions tax even though they’re venues within the city limits (and they only collect a fraction of the legally allowed 10% admissions tax).  Details may be coming, but a few days later the public learned why Hansen was grabbing headlines where he could.

KeyArena Remodel RFP On the Way

We learned a few days after Hansen’s announcement that senior analyst for Mayor Murray, Sara Belz, had been a point person for soliciting KeyArena renovation proposals with Irving Azoff and Tim Leiweke in one group and current KeyArena operator AEG in another.  Apparently the discussions have been off-and-on for a while, maybe being hinted at during the “did AEGCOM’s report get hidden by the council” story in April 2016.  The mayor was planning to make an announcement of the plan to issue the official RFP to renovate the KeyArena in January 2017 and Hansen may have rushed his announcement to refocus the public on his plan.  Details are even more unknown, since an RFP is mostly a framework for a project and bidders need to respond appropriately.

Still, as the NBA season kicks off, Seattle has a lot of arena news, but there are no NBA teams available, no plans to expand the league, and then there’s the great unknown of the NHL.

Donald Sterling’s Not Ready to Fade Into Obscurity, Clips Sale of Team

 Lawsuit, Other Arenas  Comments Off on Donald Sterling’s Not Ready to Fade Into Obscurity, Clips Sale of Team
Jun 102014
 

Donald Sterling has reversed course, instead vowing to fight the sale of the LA Clippers to Steve Ballmer.  Yes, we all saw this coming, but that doesn’t make this any less amusing.

“From the onset, I did not want to sell the Los Angeles Clippers,” he said in the letter. “I believe that Adam Silver acted in haste by illegally ordering the forced sale of the Clippers, banning me for life from the NBA and imposing the fine. Adam Silver’s conduct in doing so without conducting any real investigation was wrong.

“The action taken by Adam Silver and the NBA constitutes a violation of my rights and fly in the face of the freedoms that are afforded to all Americans.”

Different circumstances, entirely, but it will be entertaining to see what goes on in a lawsuit against the NBA (like so many had suggested Hansen should do re: the Kings).  Will LeBron and the Players Association follow through on their threats to boycott ?

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