Edmonton Oilers Visit Seattle, Threaten Relocation Without New Arena Deal

Edmonton Oilers officials are in Seattle for meetings on Monday, a prepared statement from the team said. They say they are exploring their options just 24 months before the expiration of the teams’ lease at Rexall Place.

The Oilers have been in negotiations with the city of Edmonton for some time now over the building of a new downtown arena. Owner Daryl Katz has hinted before that the team might not remain in Edmonton if a new arena isn’t built, and did so once again in the released statement attributed to Bob Black, Executive Vice President of the Katz Group.

Talk more about the Edmonton rumors with Oiler fans at The Copper & Blue.

The Seattle City Council has approved legislation for Chris Hansen’s arena plan. The plan will bring a new arena to the city, one that can hopefully bring new suitors for NBA and NHL teams. The final vote was 6-2, with six in favor of moving ahead on the proposal.

The vote will allow for the construction of a $490 million arena near the stadiums of the Seahawks and the Mariners, both of which are currently located in the SoDo district south of downtown. $200 million of public investment will be needed to get the project done.

The King County Council will still have to approve the plan and an environmental review is needed before the arena can move forward. But this thumbs up on the proposal will allow Hansen to proceed in finding either a potential NBA team that’s willing to move and replace the Seattle Sonics after they left in the 2008 regular season, or possibly the first-ever NHL team in Seattle’s history.

The Kings’ future in Sacramento has been in question over the past couple years, especially since the Maloofs canceled plans to build a downtown arena this spring. The Maloofs were rumored to be in discussions with Virginia Beach this August, but refused to discuss the matter, which has since lost steam. The possibility of a move to Seattle seems much more legitimate.

On Tuesday, Seattle disclosed a tentative agreement with hedge fund manager Chris Hansen to build a $490 million basketball and hockey arena with the goal of luring a NBA or possibly NHL team to the city. He has already spent $51 million buying land for the arena and a basketball team is his primary goal, but the city has said he can’t start construction until he has a team.

The Seattle City Council has reached a deal with investor Chris Hansen on plans to build a new arena in the SoDo area of the city near Safeco Field, according to the Seattle Times.

Hansen originally put up $290 million toward building a new arena, with the intention of drawing in NBA and NHL franchises to the area. The plan involved the city covering the rest with $120 million in bonds, which Hansen assured would be paid back in full by the revenue generated from the arena alone.

Seattle investor Chris Hansen is taking steps to purchase the Showbox Sodo building in Seattle, south of Safeco field. This comes, according to Nick Eaton, with the hope of attracting an NBA and an NHL franchise to Seattle.

Hansen purchased the space for $8 million. Combined with other properties that Hansen owns in that vicinity, this newest purchase gives the hedge fund manager the necessary land to construct a new arena.

Chris Hansen is an unfamiliar name in NBA circles — save for some holdover fans of To Catch A Predator (which is a different Chris Hansen) — but the investor has led a team of businessmen in the journey to bring an NBA team back to Seattle, as told in a terrific story in Saturday’s New York Times. Hansen has already purchased a plot of land in Seattle’s SoDo district and teamed up with the Nordstrom brothers (yes, that Nordstrom) in an investment plan that doesn’t rely on public tax money, the inevitable back-breaker with the team’s move to Oklahoma City. From the NYT:

Hansen’s an interesting character — he’s been a Sonics fan since the ‘70s, including during their lone NBA championship in 1979. Still, despite the glowing comments from those surrounding the efforts to bring a team back to Seattle, there is no plan in place for how to actually get said team to come. Stay optimistic, Seattle.

The city of Seattle reached an agreement Wednesday with King County and investor Chris Hansen on a new arena that could bring an NBA team back to the city. The latest agreement does away with the provision that an NHL franchise is needed before construction can begin on the proposed 18,500-seat facility.

City Council and King County Council still have to approve the new agreement. Seattle would save up to $80 million in investment if allowed to break ground with just an NBA franchise in tow.

Dave Zorn, a reporter for Metro Networks Arizona who’s covered the Coyotes for years, shared the initial report Friday evening on Twitter.

Via KING5 in Seattle, where fans are suddenly watching the Coyotes’ ownership saga with an interested eye following a new arena proposal there that’s contingent on relocation of an NHL and NBA teams, the NHL says that report is false. Zorn expected as much, however, and you’ll recall that the league also denied first reports that True North Sports had purchased the Atlanta Thrashers. It’s safe to say they shouldn’t necessarily be trusted when it comes to this stuff.

On Thursday, the City of Seattle officially introduced the proposal it received for a new arena that would house both an NBA and NHL franchise. Here are the highlights:

Various people involved with the City of Seattle and the proposed new NBA and NHL arena in the city spoke at a press conference today to announce officially that the proposal has been received by the city.

Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn spoke first, kicking things off with the all-important Sonics reference:

Plans are quickly falling into place for the city of Seattle as hedge fund investor Chris Hansen works to secure financing for a new arena. The accelerated talks between Hansen and high-ranking city officials are part of a renewed effort to lure the NBA and NHL to Seattle by building a privately invested arena just south of Safeco Field. According to a report on Wednesday evening, Hansen and the city have finalized the arena plans and will announce them on Thursday.

The noise surrounding a potential return of the NHL to Seattle, Wash. is just too loud to ignore. There’s a group there hoping to build a new arena, and reporting by the Seattle Times has made it widely known that this group would like to lure both the NBA and the NHL to play there.

The thought of NHL hockey in Seattle is incredible. Fans there are known for being absolutely insane, like that time they caused a minor earthquake during a Seahawks game. Seattle Sounders FC fans are cut from that same cloth, and in just their first year of existence, Sounders FC found themselves backed by a huge following. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think the Sounders have been playing in MLS for decades.

The pain of losing the Sonics may not last too much longer for Seattle fans. In an investigative report, The Seattle Times revealed that officials in the Seattle mayor’s office and a San Francisco hedge fund manager are engaged in a focused effort to try to lure an NBA or NHL franchise to the city and build a new arena, possibly as early as next fall.

The city released an agenda for a mid-December meeting that listed “Review of Basic Deal Structure,” “Financing Issues,” including “City Debt Capacity,” and “Security for Public Financing,” as discussion items. In e-mails to city officials, Christopher Hansen, 44, a Seattle native who made his fortune in finance, Hansen discussed how he was involved in plans to broker deals for an arena that didn’t involve tax increases or “direct public funding.”

Christopher Hansen, a former Seattle resident and head of San Francisco-based Valiant Capital Management LLC, is said to be the leader in a push to build a sports arena just south of Safeco Field that would be the home to a possible NHL and NBA team.

Via the Seattle Times, WSA LLC, an entity affiliated with Hansen and Valiant, paid $21.6 million for a warehouse on the proposed spot of the new arena. The sale occurred in early December.