Golden State Warriors call time-out on S.F. arena project

The Golden State Warriors' proposed 18,000-seat arena on the San Francisco waterfront features plenty of glass, metal and a spiral exterior walkway. The Golden State Warriors' proposed 18,000-seat arena on the San Francisco waterfront features plenty of glass, metal and a spiral exterior walkway. Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Golden State Warriors call time-out on S.F. arena project 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

The Golden State Warriors are putting their goal of opening a waterfront arena in San Francisco by 2017 on hold for a year - and maybe longer.

"It's about getting it right, not about getting it done fast," said Warriors President Rick Welts.

In the past 20 months, the team has produced three rough designs in an attempt to come up with one palatable to its prospective waterfront neighbors and the Bay Conservation and Development Commission, which must approve the deal. In the meantime, cost estimates for preparing Piers 30-32, on which the arena would sit, have doubled to $180 million.

The Warriors' acknowledgement that a 2017 opening won't happen comes just days before arena opponents are expected to turn in more than 15,000 signatures for a measure that would require the Warriors - and any other developer - to win voter approval to exceed current height limits along the waterfront. The deadline is Monday.

"We are going to ensure that the Warriors arena goes before voters," said Jim Stearns, the political consultant who is running the campaign for a June vote with the backing of the Sierra Club and others opposed to the 18,000-seat arena.

Backers had to gather the valid signatures of 9,702 registered voters to qualify their measure for the ballot. "The fact that this could get the needed signatures in just three weeks is a reflection of the kind of passion that is behind it," said former Mayor Art Agnos, the most prominent politico opposing the Warriors' proposal.

The measure is also a shot at the team's plan to build luxury condos and a hotel across from an arena, as well as at the Giants' envisioned high-rise development near AT&T Park.

Mayor Ed Lee, who has backed the Warriors' deal to the hilt, says he figured all along that "the voters would have a say as to whether they want this arena."

The difference is that the June measure "will make voter approval mandatory - not voluntary," Stearns said.

Meanwhile, the team is in talks to stay at Oracle Arena in Oakland beyond the 2016-17 season.

BART-ball: BART board President Joel Keller wants to use Major League Baseball as a model to prevent strikes on the transit system.

"If the two sides can't agree, then both proposals would go before a five-member panel made up of two representatives of management, two from the unions and one retired judge, and they would pick one or the other," Keller said.

That would be similar to the way baseball has done it since a series of strikes over more than 20 years culminated in the disastrous 1994 work stoppage that canceled the World Series. The sport has now gone two decades without a strike.

"It would be an all-or-nothing proposition - no splitting the baby," Keller said. "That way, both sides would know that if they are too far off the mark, they could lose everything."

It would also bar BART workers from striking, something the unions vigorously oppose.

The proposal comes on the heels of two BART strikes last year that cost the system millions and caused headaches for hundreds of thousands of commuters.

Keller said he plans to introduce the measure to the BART board, with the idea of having Bay Area voters weigh in as well on a nonbinding ballot measure.

"It's just a proposal," Keller said. "I know there is a lot of sentiment for change, but it's another thing to find officials actually willing to vote for it."

No kidding. Just look to Sacramento where, despite public support in the Bay Area for banning transit strikes, lawmakers recently killed the idea in committee after unions turned out in force to oppose it.

Two of the three votes against a ban in the Public Employment and Retirement Committee were cast by Democratic Sens. Leland Yee of San Francisco and Jim Beall of San Jose. The third was also cast by a Democrat, Sen. Marty Block of San Diego.

The two votes for the GOP proposal came from Republicans.

Beall, the committee's chairman, said before the vote that he would be interested in "discussing" how to prevent BART strikes, but that banning them was "way over" the line.

Yee, who is running for secretary of state, said nothing.

"I don't think you will find anyone - Republican or Democrat - who will carry the idea now," state Sen. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord, chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee, said after the vote.

Brown ride: Three days before his administration petitioned the California Supreme Court to overturn a pair of legal rulings holding up construction of the state's high-speed rail system, Gov. Jerry Brown received a $27,200 contribution from one of the project's key contractors, Tutor Perini Corp.

Tutor Perini is leading a joint venture that only months ago was awarded a $1 billion-plus contract to design and build the first stretch of track, running from Madera to Fresno.

Brown's press secretary, Evan Westrup, dismissed any suggestion of pay to play, telling us, "Contributions have no bearing on the state's legal filings."

But Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, R-Twin Peaks (San Bernardino County), who is running for governor, said it all "really smacks of cronyism. ... Jerry Brown's friends get richer, and the rest of California suffers."