7 Days

REAL Estate Milestone

Chris Daniels broke the news last night via twitter that the Hansen group plans to apply for a Master Use Permit (MUP) next week. This is a significant real estate milestone. Having a submitted MUP, along with an expected preliminary SEPA review will give the Seattle team a clear path to open their arena in 2015, a full season earlier than the best case Sacramento projections.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Let's use history as a guide. I'm told Hansen's group will file Master Use Permit next week, hopes to break ground on <a href="https://twitter.com/search/%23SeattleArena">#SeattleArena</a> by Nov.</p>&mdash; Chris Daniels (@ChrisDaniels5) <a href="https://twitter.com/ChrisDaniels5/status/322583034815725568">April 12, 2013</a></blockquote>

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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>The Pepsi Center in Denver, broke ground November 1997, and opened in October 1999. <a href="http://t.co/Ez09eNZWzX" title="http://ow.ly/jZuPK">ow.ly/jZuPK</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/search/%23SeattleArena">#SeattleArena</a></p>&mdash; Chris Daniels (@ChrisDaniels5) <a href="https://twitter.com/ChrisDaniels5/status/322583297442062337">April 12, 2013</a></blockquote>

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Additionally a 10:00am hearing today may result in the dismissal of a lawsuit charging that the arena violates Initiative 91. In the event that the suit is not dismissed it is widely believed that city counsel has enough support to resolve the issue via legislative action rather than waste valuable city resources lawyering around a proposal that has broad public and governmental support.

Our City Attorney, Pete Holmes, will be handling this matter. I endorse Pete without condition for re-election this fall and urge people to support him. Pete is the most honest politician I have ever met and his commitment to this issue and has not gotten nearly enough credit. The city attorney and his staff have done a fabulous job ensuring that our legislation met all the standards of law and was crafted in a way that increases its odd of being successfully defended in court. This took a long time and a lot of thought and the investment Pete made into the process provides a lot of additional certainty for our proposal when compared to the opposition.

The Working Masses

The amazing turnaround time necessary to produce construction and legal documentation in time to have these matters completed by the Board of Governors speaks volumes about the commitment to the project demonstrated by countless participants who have never made the news. Staff level participants in the office of our mayor, city council and DPD are largely unable to talk about the details of this process but what they do say makes it obvious that a lot of thought and energy was required to get this building up and running by 2015. Big thanks go to everybody at #TeamSeattle. It looks like their efforts will provide our ownership group with the ability to make a much stronger case next week than would otherwise be possible.

Planning

All of this of course is a result of some really good planning and leadership. It has been clear from the start that press conferences were not a priority for this ownership group. While the opposition has been investing substantial energy into handling the public narrative the Hansen group has instead focused on the details of a regional sports network and building construction. In the last week details about both those issues have surfaced to indicate that Hansen's team may be further along than Aaron Bruski's sources had realized.