Nickels urges lawmakers to fund KeyArena remodel, help keep Sonics

Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels today confirmed that a new ownership group including Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and wireless mogul John Stanton has offered to pay half the cost of a $300 million KeyArena remodel and buy the Sonics or another NBA team to play there.

At a news conference this afternoon, Nickels and other Seattle officials urged state legislators to approve the proposed KeyArena tax package before the Legislature adjourns next week.

"This is a critical moment for the Seattle Center and for the KeyArena," Nickels said. "For more than 45 years it's been the anchor for the Seattle Center... it is not a throwaway facility."

Sonics owner Clay Bennett, who is seeking to move the franchise to his hometown of Oklahoma City, has repeatedly said the team is not for sale.

Some state legislative leaders said the latest proposal is better than previous arena plans, but it has arrived too late to gain approval before lawmakers adjourn.

House Speaker Frank Chopp, D-Seattle, who has been viewed as a primary obstacle to arena-tax subsidies, referred all questions to Rep. Jeff Morris, D-Anacortes.

"We're on a shot clock down here and it's running out," Morris said. "I don't see any possible way that we're going to get that much support for a bill that we haven't seen."

Gov. Christine Gregoire also did not appear in a hurry to push the plan this session.

Aaron Toso, a Gregoire spokesman, said the governor "has not made any commitments to local officials or to potential owners" to approve the proposal.

Toso said it was unlikely the governor would call a special session on the issue.

"If the plan has merit it can certainly be pursued next year," Toso said.

Still, Nickels and other Seattle officials said they hope to sway legislators in the coming week.

The private investors' offer of $150 million is the "missing ingredient" that has been lacking in previous arena proposals that flopped in Olympia, Nickels said.

Ballmer's four-member investor group, first reported in today's Seattle Times, also includes Seattle developer Matt Griffin and Costco CEO Jim Sinegal.

Those investors initially offered $75 million toward the KeyArena project but recently doubled that to $150 million in an attempt to sway lawmakers, Griffin revealed at the news conference.

During an interview in Las Vegas today at Microsoft's Mix conference for Web developers, Ballmer wouldn't talk basketball. When asked what he'd like to see happen with the Sonics and what he was prepared to do to make it happen, he said, "I'm not talking about that today."

Former U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton, hired by the city to enforce the Sonics' KeyArena lease — which runs out in 2010 — said at the news conference that lawmakers should act now.

"This is an opportunity for right now, for this week and next week, not for next year," Gorton said.

NBA owners next month are expected to vote on whether to approve Bennett's request to move the team. If that happens, Gorton said, saving the Sonics or acquiring another NBA team will be "somewhere between very, very difficult and next to impossible."

Staff reporter Benjamin J. Romano contributed to this report from Las Vegas. Jim Brunner: 206-515-5628 or jbrunner@seattletimes.com