It has recently been reported by KING5 that Don Levin, the co-owner of the AHL’s Chicago Wolves – a development league team for the NHL, is looking into building a new arena in Bellevue.
The report states that Levin “had recently swung through Bellevue, looking into the possibility of building a new arena which could house the NHL or an NBA franchise. Levin wouldn’t confirm, nor deny, the visit took place.”
When Levin was asked about the trip to Bellevue, he stated, “I just can’t talk about it.”
Levin had recently been in town for the Stanley Cup Playoffs, when the Vancouver Canucks were in the finals, and came down to Bellevue following his visit in Vancouver. According to the report, he has a property on Vancouver Island, and although living in Chicago, is familiar with the Puget Sound.
This news comes 1 week after Steve Ballmer answered questions about the possibility of Seattle getting an NBA team back.
Any idea where they could build a new arena? We cannot seem to agree on letting a small train run through our city, can you imagine the uproar building an arena with all the congestion and parking issues. Are we going to see “No Teams in Bellevue” signs popping up soon?
I recall, back in 06′ or 07′ that a new arena could go on the west or east side of 116th, south of NE 8th. This is where most of the car dealerships are/used to be.
Although the train is an issue in Bellevue my opinion is that it would be received well/poorly by other groups for reasons not so focused on traffic issues/building over wetlands.
If/once a decision is made to build a stadium in the area…watch out! ALL business in Bellevue will flourish (especially the bloated restaurant sector).
This is a great sign for the bigger picture of the economy.
I would hardly say he “answered” any questions.
I believe the original idea before the Sonics left town was to build an arena where the Safeway distribution center is (was) located – just off 12th and 124th.
Back when this was first being talked about the plan was to build an arena in the area currently occupied by the Safeway distribution center in the Bel-Red area. Elsewhere on the Eastside, I could almost see them doing something out in the Sammamish Valley where there’s actually a decent quantity of available land, but I suspect there would be too many NIMBYs out there to get it approved in any decent length of time. I could also almost see using this as an excuse to put Totem Lake Mall out of its misery…
Fingers crossed!
Can’t imagine it would be called the Bellevue Supersonics. I heard an interesting idea for a spot: across from the Lexus dealership across from Auto Row. Not seemingly enough room, but an apparent candidate
Bring the Sonics to Bellevue!!!!
The Safeway Distro center would be a great location, especially integrated with the light rail station planned for the area.
No, no, no to something in the Sammamish Valley – the traffic coming and going would be horrific, and the area would be a total dead zone on non-game days (320+ days per year).
It would be much better to integrate a new arena into an area that would have intensive use all year (hence a light rail station and 5000+ units of housing).
We certainly need something that is accessible for thousands of cars, but it would be disastrous to build something that is ONLY accessible via car and only for one purpose.
Pingback: Pacific Northwest-Coast Bias » Blog Archive » Where to build an NBA arena in Bellevue?
No thank you! Bellevue has bad enough traffic already. Adding a sports arena is just going to make Bellevue suck more than it already does.