The environment review of the New Arena at Seattle Center is on track and has not revealed any major problems, as of yet.
That’s according to Bryan Stevens, spokesperson for the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections. SDCI is overseeing the permitting for the $600 million project at the current KeyArena site.
Stevens said Monday that the draft environmental impact statement is scheduled to be published April 23rd, and trigger a 45-day comment period which will run until June 8th. Stevens says that window includes the 30-day comment period and optional 15-day extension. Stevens says the final EIS should be available around September of 2018.
That would work with a timeline pitched by Oak View Group Chairman Tim Leiweke, who has suggested that the new arena construction could begin as early as October, and fit within a timeline for a new National Hockey League franchise. OVG, along with UW Grad David Bonderman, and Hollywood producer Jerry Bruckheimer, have submitted an application for an expansion franchise to begin play at the new Arena in 2020.
Last week, it sold more than 33,000 season ticket deposits. The first 10,000 were sold within 12 minutes.
Stevens said the formal design drawings have not been submitted to the City as of yet, but are expected prior to release of the draft EIS. The project will get another public review at a Design Commission meeting on March 15th, and focus on how it will work with public streets, sidewalks, and multimodal forms of travel.
