Group offers to pay for Seattle arena

SEATTLE — The quest to bring the NBA back to Seattle took a significant step Tuesday with investor Chris Hansen and his investment group offering to pay for a proposed arena with private funds.

In a letter to Seattle Mayor Ed Murray, the city council and King County executive Dow Constantine, Hansen’s group is offering to rip up a memorandum of understanding from 2012 that called for up to $200 million US in public investment in the arena.

“We just concluded the landscape has changed,” said Wally Walker, part of Hansen’s investment group. “We can’t be ignorant of where we are four years in. If we think we can do this, then we should. Our priority is to get the arena because we think the NBA and NHL will come after that.”

Hansen’s group is offering to pay for the project privately. Additionally, the group is offering to contribute to a transportation project near the proposed arena that would help deal with freight traffic at the Port of Seattle, a sticking point in past efforts, in exchange for a waiver of the city’s admissions tax and an adjustment of the city’s business and occupation tax.

“We have concluded that a changed economic climate makes possible the private financing of the arena,” the letter reads. “For that reason, and to address concerns expressed by city council, we would consider revising the street vacation petition to eliminate public financing of the arena. In such a case the MOU would be terminated.”

The termination of the MOU provides Hansen’s group with flexibility — should the city agree to its requests, which still include blocking off a street. Hansen already owns the land for the arena and could proceed with construction even without a team. It also opens up the NHL as an immediate possibility as the MOU was tied to the acquisition of an NBA team as a condition of construction.