Warriors must pay for arena renovation
The state Supreme Court rejected theWarriors’ appeal Wednesday of a ruling requiring the team to pay Oakland and Alameda County for construction work on the arena where they played for decades before leaving for San Francisco last year.
The construction began in 1996, 25 years after the team moved from San Francisco to Oakland. Oakland and Alameda County dismantled and redesigned the interior of the 19,000seat arena, now known as Oakland Arena, and issued $ 140 million in bonds to pay the costs over 30 years.
The agreement allowed the Warriors to leave after 10 years if they paid the debt in full. If they stayed longer than 20 years but acted to terminate the agreement before 2027, they were required to continue paying off the bonds, minus profits to the local governments from other uses of the arena.
But when theWarriors announced plans to move back across the bay before the 201920 season — a move allowed under the contract — their lawyers argued that the team did not owe any more money because it did not “terminate” its agreement by exercising its right to leave. According to Henry Gardner, interim executive director of the Coliseum Authority, the unpaid amount is about $ 45 million.
An arbitrator and a San Francisco Superior Court judge rejected the team’s arguments in 2018. Their rulings were upheld in August by the state’s First District Court of Appeal, which said theWarriors had terminated their contract.
Although “terminate” can be interpreted in different ways, theWarriors’ decision to depart the arena that the city and county had renovated for their benefit is reasonably understood as “termination by nonrenewal,” Presiding Justice Barbara Jones said in the 30 ruling.
She said the 1996 agreement included a “compromise” that allowed theWarriors to leave after 10 years if they paid the entire debt, or after 20 years if they made “debtservice payments less an offset until 2027.” That should be interpreted to require payments even if the departure is allowed by the contract, Jones said.
TheWarriors appealed to the state Supreme Court, which denied review of the case without comment.
“While we are disappointed in the Supreme Court’s decision to deny our petition, we will, as we’ve always indicated, pay the debt obligation in accordance with the ruling,” said team spokesman Raymond Ridder.
The case is OaklandAlameda County Coliseum Authority vs. Golden StateWarriors, S264671.