We wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who came down to City Hall yesterday to show their support for making Sonics Arena shovel-ready. Our team was once again humbled by the dedication Sonics fans, hockey fans and civic leaders have displayed throughout this long review process.

We’d like to especially thank the 13,711 people who signed our petition and Cooper for delivering them. A big thank you as well to KJR, Softy, Lenny Wilkens, Brandon Roy, James Donaldson, Donald Watts, Jaci McCormack from Rise Above, Kevin Calabro, Mayor Ed Murray, Mike McGinn, the Seattle Sports Commission and Unite Here Local 8, among many others for your support last night. And we’d like to thank the City Council, for providing a public forum for people to weigh in on this work.

Last night was a critical opportunity for fans to voice their approval. Now it’s time to keep the pressure on before the City Council votes late April or early May.

Over the next several weeks the Council will hold more meetings to review specific aspects of this proposal before the final vote. So please email the entire City Council at council@seattle.gov to remind them how much community support there is to approve the street vacation. Here are some talking points you can consider using:

  1. After a lengthy environmental review process the Seattle Department of Transportation recommended the street vacation.
  2. The Seattle Mariners received street vacations for Safeco Field and the Mariners Parking garage.
  3. The street vacation is the final step of the EIS process and will give the investment team the green light to build an arena which puts Seattle in the best place it can be to take advantage of opportunities that will come up.
  4. Approving the street vacation will show the NBA we are ready to welcome professional teams to our city.
  5. The Mayor and the Seattle City Council deserve our thanks for all the hard work they’ve done over the past three years to bring us to this exciting moment.

There’s still much more work to do, but with your support, we are now closer than ever to BRINGING BACK OUR SONICS!

Thank you!

— The Sonics Arena Team