by Ken Gimblin

SAN FRANCISCO–Although no one at the Golden State Warriors front office would admit owners Joe Lacob and Peter Gruber underneath their confidence in the campaign to build a Warriors new arena at San Francisco’s waterfront are confident that they will be successful in getting the job done one factor that the Warriors have to worry about worse than facing the Miami Heat or even the recently fearsome Toronto Raptors comes in the package of former San Francisco Mayor Art Agnos.

Agnos is campaigning door to door grass roots style ahead of any bond measure that the Warriors maybe planning to put on a future San Francisco ballot for development at the Piers 30-32. The first sign of trouble was last November’s campaign for propositons B and C which was to develop condominums at the waterfront location but were voted down by a good margin by San Francisco voters, the Warriors said inspite of the loss there was nothing to worry about.

The Warriors at the time of the November election said there is a huge difference between building condos and a new arena and that voters would go for the arena because it would spell jobs and bring a civic sports pride to the city and create revenues for the city. Agnos said that the arena like the condos will block the spectacular views that Piers 30-32 area provides and that developement for condos and a new arena would not be a fit at the waterfront.

In spite of the loss of 8 Washington the name of the condo campaign for props B and C Warriors owner Joe Lacob is not worried about the Warriors arena development, “this is San Francisco and this is the Bay Area and things take a long time there are a lot of committes and politics” Lacob told Sports Illustrated. Lacob and Gruber appeared to be confident each time they met with the media regarding the new arena development but without mentioning Agnos they know a new basketball arena won’t be a slam dunk

“I would say we could not be doing any better than we are doing now. We have a great group of people working on it, in our staff, architects, everybody. We’re trying like heck to get there by fall of 17 and I still think we’re going to do it” said Lacob. The project will cost $1 billion or more and the development has been receiving opposition from numerous neighbors in the waterfront community commerical and residential. Commerically retail and corporate business while they welcome Warriors fans business they feel strongly about the Piers development and losing the environment of what the Bay Bridge and Treasure Island view provides.

Mayor Agnos said that when he was mayor he had over 22,000 signatures that voted to tear down the Embarcadero freeway after the Loma Prieta Earthquake in 1989 and said city voters wanted views to the Bridge and T-Island and while some argued that losing the freeway would create inconvience and gridlock it worked out when the Embarcadero road was built running from Fisherman’s Wharf to the Cal Train station in downtown with Muni running the F lines from downtown to Fisherman’s Wharf.

Now Agnos takes the arguement that while the Warriors would be good for San Francisco a new arena at the piers would not be aesthetically beneifical for the waterfront much in the same way as the freeway was. He argues we took down the freeway for the benefit of the view now do we want to build an arena to block that same view we argued about, “I never dreamed that, 23 years later, after fighting to tear down ugly freeway blight, I would be fighting to protect this priceless restored waterfront from a modern-day real estate gold rush. But Iam.” said Agnos.

Although the Warriors appear not to be worried and have the full backing of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, the corporate community in San Francisco, developers, former San Francisco Mayors Willie Brown, Gavin Newsom and current Mayor Ed Lee, and a good number of the San Francisco board of supervisors they worry about a former mayor who ran a grass roots campaign in 1989 to tear down a long time freeway and now takes a clipboard house to house and business to business much in the way he campaigned in 89 he plans to stop an arena development of the Warriors dream arena to save the views of the San Francisco waterfront at Piers 30-32.

Warriors arena notes: Sources say that the Warriors best attempt at getting a downtown arena would be at AT&T Park and that the Giants are not in favor of development at that part of the waterfront and would welcome the Warriors to build a new arena at AT&T Park. This was talked before by the Giants but the Warriors want their own building and are not interested in paying rent to a new landlord. Agnos suggested that the Warriors could always build a new arena out where Candlestick Park is located after the city tears down the old stadium, the Warriors didn’t even bother to comment on such an idea.

Ken Gimblin covers the NBA for Sportstalk radio