Sonics: Arena plan would need $300 million from taxpayers

By GREGG BELL and TIM BOOTH | The Associated Press • Published January 19, 2007

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SEATTLE - A delayed plan for a state-of-the-art arena in the Seattle suburbs that would seat approximately 18,500 and cost more than $500 million - including $300 million from taxpayers - will reach the state Legislature by month's end, SuperSonics and Storm owner Clay Bennett said Thursday.

Bennett said the arena would be built in one of two spots along Interstate 405, in Renton across the street from a retail and housing development known as "The Landing" or in Bellevue along a business stretch called "Auto Row." The new building would house the Sonics, the WNBA Seattle Storm, high-profile concerts, and perhaps national political conventions, college basketball's Final Four championships, and perhaps the Grammy Awards.

Although Bennett renewed his intent to keep the teams in the region, his proposal still carries the not-so-veiled threat that has hovered over the Sonics and Storm since his purchase of the teams last year: Without taxpayer money for a new arena, they will leave for his native Oklahoma.

The arena would include 50 high-cost suites and would be similar to Denver's Pepsi Center, home to the NBA's Nuggets and the Avalanche of the NHL.

"My simple thinking is there is a need for the facility," Bennett said. "Let's do it while the economy is good. Let's do it while leadership is relatively accepting of the notion. Let's do it while we have the team in place and begin to grow and make something wonderful happen starting now and not have to begin years from now."

He hopes to have the building completed in the fall of 2010, which would coincide with the end of the Sonics' current lease at Seattle's KeyArena. The team has been losing money under that lease. Bennett figures it will lose $20 million this season. "What we have found is an extremely complex proposition," Bennett said of a plan he had intended to present to lawmakers at the beginning on their current session on Jan. 8.

"I think there is a drop-dead deadline to have the best proposal we can put together by the end of the month."

In a letter Bennett sent to Gov. Chris Gregoire, Bennett said the teams will ask for at least $300 million in taxpayer money.

That money would come from the King County restaurant and rental-car taxes that helped build Safeco Field for the Seattle Mariners. The Legislature would have to authorize the alternate use of the money.