http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/hockey..._tbirds30.html

T-Birds may have home in Kent
City, franchise to explore move to $35 million, 6,500-seat arena

By ANGELA GALLOWAY
P-I REPORTER

After nearly 90 years, the final closing horn may soon sound for hockey in Seattle.

The city of Kent and the Seattle Thunderbirds have agreed to seriously explore moving the minor league team to a new $35 million, 6,500-seat arena there within a few years.

Seattle has been home to a hockey team since the Seattle Metropolitans won the Stanley Cup back in 1917.

"It would be ideal for us -- location-wise, and the size of the city, everything about it," said Thunderbirds president Russ Farwell. "We have given them a pledge that we aren't shopping around and if they go ahead with it we are definitely interested."

Kent officials expect to conclude a study and make a final decision this summer over whether to build the events center on a 17-acre downtown parcel. The T-Birds would be the anchor tenant.

"If everything just fell into place, we could be under construction next winter and open for the 2008-2009 season," said John Hodgson, Kent chief administrative officer.

Seattle officials had mixed views on what the move could mean for the financial viability of KeyArena, given the questionable future of the Sonics and WNBA Storm there.

In recent weeks, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels' office has been negotiating behind closed doors with the owners of the Sonics. The team has threatened to leave Seattle unless it gets a more lucrative lease and taxpayers subsidize a $220 million renovation of KeyArena.

The city recently made the team an offer and is waiting to hear back, Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis said Thursday. Ceis downplayed how significantly a T-Birds departure would hit KeyArena's bottom line.



"The Thunderbirds don't really generate a lot of revenue for KeyArena," he said. "It's minimal if not neutral."

Having those dates open "is probably OK because then we can market them for concerts and other things that actually do make a lot money," Ceis said.

"We've always assumed the Thunderbirds were leaving," he added.

But City Councilman David Della, who chairs the committee that oversees KeyArena, said he didn't see this coming.

"It's news to me so I'm a bit shocked," Della said. "It is concerning because we're trying to look at Seattle Center and the KeyArena in terms of its viability and so that means we have to look at every tenant in KeyArena and factor that in."

The T-Birds provide relatively affordable family entertainment and several dozen guaranteed bookings a year that might prove hard to replace, said Seattle Center spokesman Perry Cooper.

The T-Birds' lease expires next June, but the city has granted it a one-year extension. The Western Hockey League team has played in the Seattle Center for three decades. It draws about 4,300 spectators per game.

The T-Birds say KeyArena has been a bad fit for them since it opened on the site of the former Coliseum in late 1995. They say the rent is too high, some of the best hockey-viewing seats were squeezed out in the renovations, and the team lost its cut of concession revenues.

Finally, parking in lower Queen Anne is too expensive for its family oriented fan base.

Bottom line: The team has been in the red since KeyArena opened, team officials say.

The Kent facility would be largely modeled after the Everett Events Center and would be expected to cover its own operating and debt costs, said Hodgson. It would be built on city-owned property where sports fields now sit. They city may also consider building convention facilities there.