SAN FRANCISCO—The proposed multi-event Chase Center, that will be built in the Mission Bay District of San Francisco and will be the home of the Golden State Warriors, is still facing opposition from the local community.
The Mission Bay Alliance, a well-funded opponent of the proposed arena, is at the forefront of the resistance.
According the San Francisco Chronicle, a week after a state Supreme Court judge shot down the group’s environmental challenge to the $1 billion basketball and entertainment venue, the alliance said on Monday that it will take the case to the California Court of Appeal.
“Such an important environmental matter will be ultimately decided in the Court of Appeal,” an environmental attorney for appellants, Osha Meserve said to the Chronicle. “The violations of environmental laws are blatant.”
A three-justice panel will now independently review the claims.
The plan for building a new arena was announced on May 22, 2012 at a Golden State Warriors press conference. The originally planned site was on Pier 30-32 along the San Francisco Bay waterfront between the San Francisco Ferry Building and AT&T Park. The proposed site was immediately opposed by the South Beach-Rincon-Mission Bay Neighborhood Association who claimed that the addition of a second sports venue on the waterfront would take away from the “family friendly” sentiment of the area.
On April 19, 2014, the Warriors abandoned its plans for the pier site and purchased a 12-acre site owned by salesforce.com in the Mission Bay neighborhood. The arena will be privately financed and is projected to be completed for the start of the 2019 NBA season.
The Mission Bay Alliance began its opposition back in April and are claiming that San Francisco city officials violated the California Environmental Quality Act, along with other state laws, when they signed off on the 2,300-page environmental report analyzing how the 18,000-seat arena would impact everything from traffic to public transit to environmental wind shifts and shadows.
Much of the opposition is funded by the donors of UCSF. Many of them argue that cars from the arena will create too much congestion around the UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay, which is located across the street from the proposed venue site, according to the Chronicle. However, UCSF’s administration supports the arena.
Joining the Mission Bay Alliance in the resistance is SaveMuni, a public transit reform group.
“The deeply flawed arena EIR failed to assess and mitigate the project’s significant traffic, public transit and other adverse environmental impacts,” said Gerald Cauthen, a transportation engineer and co-founder of SaveMuni, per the Chronicle.
City Attorney Dennis Herrera responded, “This event center is an important civic priority, which has been thoroughly scrutinized and has won overwhelming support every step of the way. I’m not surprised that the project foes are continuing to fight it, but I’m confident that our approval and review process will again easily pass muster in the Court of Appeal.”
