Warriors win judgment in fight over SF Mission Bay arena

By J.K. Dineen : sfgate – excerpt

The Golden State Warriors’ push to relocate the basketball team from Oakland to San Francisco’s Mission Bay neighborhood cleared a key hurdle Monday, as a judge ruled against a group that had filed multiple lawsuits to kill the project.

On Monday, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Garrett Wong ruled that the city’s environmental review of the proposed arena was adequate, rejecting arguments it had failed to consider a number of environmental impacts, including alternative sites for the arena.

The ruling was in favor of the city’s Commission on Community Investment and Infrastructure, which oversees the development of Mission Bay, and the project sponsor, the Warriors.

In a statement, Warriors President Rick Welts said the ruling “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.”

“We look forward to breaking ground soon,” he said.

Mayor Ed Lee, who has portrayed the arena as his legacy project, called the decision “an important milestone in the process of bringing the Golden State Warriors back to San Francisco and to building a state-of-the-art entertainment venue the entire San Francisco Bay Area can be proud of.” The arena will be called the Chase Center… (more)