NBA Warriors Cut Deal to Move Across the Bay

SAN FRANCISCO (CN) - The Golden State Warriors have completed plans to buy 12 acres in San Francisco's Mission Bay neighborhood for a sports and entertainment complex.

The 2015 NBA champions announced its plan last year to buy the land from software firm Salesforce, and hopes to have the arena ready for the 2018-19 NBA season. The team said environmental reviews should be completed this year.

The Warriors' home court today is the Oracle Arena, next to the O.co Coliseum - home of the A's and Raiders.

Rick Welts, the team's president and chief operating officer, called the deal a "$1 billion-plus investment in San Francisco," though the purchase price of the land has not been disclosed.

Mayor Edwin Lee and the University of California at San Francisco, whose Mission Bay campus is near the site, reached preliminary agreements with the Warriors this month, in which the city agreed to establish a Mission Bay Transportation Improvement Fund.

It is to be fully funded by revenue from the Warriors arena project, and is designed to guarantee that resources will be in place to manage the flow of visitors and traffic and in the area by the arena when it opens, the Warriors said in a statement.

The Warriors said the arena project will bring more than $27 million up front for transportation and infrastructure improvements in Mission Bay, along with $125 million for parks, open space and affordable housing. The team said the Mission Bay Transportation Improvement Fund should bring another $10 million a year for traffic mitigations.

The Warriors said the UCSF announced "qualified" support for the project, so long as the city and the Warriors address the university's concerns about traffic, access to hospitals and overlapping events at nearby AT&T Park.

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