by Jonah Owen Lamb
The Golden State Warriors have purchased land in Mission Bay for a planned San Francisco basketball arena, The San Francisco Examiner has learned.
The team had generated controversy for its proposed waterfront arena along The Embarcadero, just south of the Bay Bridge.
Bob Linscheid, president and CEO of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, said the new deal was a big win for The City.
“We received a heads up from Rick Welts before it became public today,” he said.
Linscheid said he congratulated Welts, the team’s president and CEO, in a short telephone conversation Monday afternoon. “This shows that the Warriors are deeply committed to San Francisco,” Linscheid said.
The new site, sold by Salesforce to the Warriors, sits adjacent to the UC San Francisco Mission Bay campus. The sale price is unknown.
Valued at $180 million in 2013, according to the city’s Assessor’s Office, the parcel will have many advantages over the fraught waterfront location from the cost of construction to myriad political hurdles on the horizon.
Robust public transportation already runs directly from downtown BART stations to the area, there is much more parking than along The Embarcadero, no port commission owns the site and no proposition on the ballot would impact the deal. The Warriors also own the land, whereas they would have leased the site at Piers 30-32, and land use approvals have already been given.
UCSF, whose sprawling campus dominates the neighborhood, was given a $100 million donation recently by Salesforce co-founder Marc Benioff. UCSF also recently purchased land from Salesforce, who abandoned its plans for Mission Bay. Instead, Salesforce announced recently it will occupy half of the Transbay Tower on Mission Street when the building is completed in 2017.
Opponents of the waterfront arena took the news as vindication of their fight against huge waterfront development projects.
”The Warriors have shifted to a smarter alternative because the people, not just the politicians, became involved in the process,” said former mayor Art Agnos, who was an opponent of the proposed arena location at Piers 30-32. Agnos is a supporter of Proposition B, a June ballot measure that would require voter approval for waterfront developments that seek to exceed existing building height limits.