First the Golden State Warriors got the Oklahoma City Thunder’s star Kevin Durant. Now the Bay area team wins a judge’s ruling allowing it to move out of Oakland and build a $1 billion arena in San Francisco’s Mission Bay area.
Environmentalists fighting the project say they will ask a California appeals court to overturn the judge who turned aside their environmental concerns. San Francisco Superior court Judge Garrett Wong ruled against the Mission Bay Alliance and SaveMuni, groups that argue the city’s environmental review process for the site was not sound. The judge rejected their arguments the city had failed to consider environmental impacts including alternative sites for the proposed 18,500-seat arena.
“This brings us a huge step closer to building a new state-of-the-art sports and entertainment venue, which will add needed vitality to the Mission Bay neighborhood and serve the entire Bay Area extremely well,” said Rick Welts, team president.
Mayor Ed Lee called it an important milestone in the process of bringing the Golden State Warriors back to San Francisco. The arena will be called the Chase center after the team signed a naming-rights agreement with JPMorgan Chase.