On Monday, the Golden State Warriors released the design specs for a new arena slated for construction on the San Francisco waterfront.
Designed by architecture firms Snøhetta and AECOM, the proposed 17,500-seat area will be located on Piers 30-32. The lozenge-shaped arena will be accompanied by 105,000 square feet of adjacent retail space running along the Embarcadero, 333,000 square feet of open green space and and underground parking garage capable of holding up to 650 cars.
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"It is safe to say from the Warriors' perspective that...[the designers] have taken our vision and created something way beyond what we could have expected just a couple of months ago," Warriors President and Chief Operating Officer Rick Welts told the San Francisco Examiner.
The arena will be using nearby AT&T Park as a model in more ways than one. Not only is the new building going to be approximately the same height as the home of the San Francisco Giants and similarly provide a spot for cross-bay ferries to dock, but Warriors ownership is expected to take the same funding route and rely entirely on private money to finance the multi-million dollar construction.
The team has been given a 66-year lease by the Port of San Francisco on the condition that it does the intensive renovation work required to get the two 13-acre piers capable of supporting a massive sports and shopping complex, a project that the city will eventually reimburse the team for up to $120 million dollars. Officials hope to raise that money through the sale of a nearby parcel and rent credits from the development.
If successful, the proposal would transform a slice of the city's waterfront that for decades has defied efforts to develop it, most recently when a deal fell through last winter with America's Cup regatta organizers led by Oracle CEO Larry Ellison.
"We really learned our lesson from America's Cup," Matz said. "This is a much tighter deal that is much more contained and constrained to the value that is being created by the Warriors."
On top of the cost to rebuild the piers, Warriors ownership expects to spend about $500 million constructing the stadium.
The new complex will have about about 2,000 fewer seats than the Warriors' current home of the Oracle Arena, where the team has been located since the early 1970s.
The designs are being unveiled to the public during a community meeting with at the Delancey Street Foundation on Tuesday evening. Both Warriors ownership and city leaders eager to get the project underway have made efforts to reach out to neighborhood residents and business owners weary of the increased traffic and crime that could potentially come along with the development.
The team wants to have the arena open for home games by the start of the 2017 season, by which time Bay Area rapper, NYU lecturer, classical composer and all-around #BasedGod Lil' B will have hopefully risen through the Warriors' Santa Cruz-based minor league program and become the team's starting point guard.
Stranger things have happened, right?
Check out the designs of the proposed arena:
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