Ballmer Offer to Renovate Key Arena Is Off the Table

Mayor Nickels is announcing this morning at a press conference that the Steve Ballmer-led offer to renovate Key Arena is no more.

What about the court case? Updates to come.

UPDATE: Quotes from Nickels, via Jim Brunner of the Seattle Times...

"This is a truly missed opportunity for our city, the region, the state and the NBA...We had hoped this offer would be compelling enough that the Legislature and the governor would embrace it and give us the tools to go into the NBA Board of Governors meeting later this month and make an extraordinarily strong case."

And this, about the court case--Brunner's words:

Nickels was asked several times at the morning news conference whether the city will reconsider letting the Sonics out of the KeyArena lease in exchange for a larger cash payment or the promise of a potential future NBA franchise.

Nickels repeatedly answered "We have a court date in June" and refused to elaborate.

SonicsCentral anticipated this yesterday, and they continue to be optimistic: "There is some very intriguing conversation beginning to occur around the league that could result in a resolution. Again the powers that be are sweating this trial. I really don’t think they ever anticipated the potential that the mayor would not blink and the best chance to see a brokered solution is probably about 3 weeks from now.

Don’t give up now. Nothing we didn’t all expect for the last several days…"

I'm not holding my breath. More likely we'll "see a brokered solution" that involves the Sonics buying their way out of the lease, than...what? The NBA awards Seattle an expansion team (with no arena) as a way to get out of the lawsuit? Gives the New Orleans franchise to Bennett for him to move? (You think they're getting bad PR now...) I'm not sure what solution could happen that would involve Sonics fans being happy.