by Jerry Feitelberg

SAN FRANCISCO–Guess what Piers 30-32 the former planned arena location for the Golden State Warriors is all about? It’s about to fall into San Francisco Bay unless someone comes forward with $87 million to prevent the foundation of the pier from an eventual collapse and do a nice fixer upper for the project. Proposition B which passed this past June eliminated any hope for the Warriors to build a new state of the art arena at the piers.

The measure makes it clear that any new buildings built along the waterfront must be done with San Francisco voters approval. The measure restricts height limits and that pretty much forced the Warriors at the time to find other digs which will be at Mission Bay a good mile from where they wanted to play hoops. The Warriors who met with Mission Bay residents last Thursday unveiled a illustrated look of the arena.

Getting to the new arena will take a little longer at the current stage unless as San Francisco Muni plans to get light rail from the Warriors arena connected on the same line with the Powell Street Metro station.Public transit plays a big role in the Warriors new arena thinking. The City has taken on a lot of sports failures losing the Warriors at Piers 30-32 and losing the San Francisco 49ers to Santa Clara and losing out on Pier 30-32 has not resonated well with San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee’s office.

Lee’s office while all behind Prop B and matter of fact ready to take on the the California State Commission who plans to take the measure to court arguing that the city doesn’t have jurisdiction over the waterfront port not to mention the commission has former San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom now California Lt.Governor planning to fight the city.

Lee initially said that if the Warriors build at Piers 30-32 it would be his legacy but the legs of that thought was quickly squashed when Lee saw the number of ballots going to the voters registar’s office to get proposition B on the ballot.

After realizing that Piers 30-32 wasn’t going to work Lee was relieved that the Warriors planned to purchase land and move to Mission Bay. The disscussion is still about Prop B even though the Warriors arena location issue has been resolved. Oracle’s CEO Larry Ellison wants to build at the waterfront and at Piers 30-32 hotels and condominums. The Warriors wanted to do that too with the new arena at that location. Lee and City Attorney Dennis Herrera are prepared to fight Newsom and the State Commission on jurisdiction over the port and Herrera has said the city voters have a say about height limits at the Embarcadero.

As Ellison and company knows that won’t happen without voter approval and that’s very unlikely given the waterfront neighborhood already had rejected the arena idea there. The Warriors wanted to build a hotel and condo across the street from the arena. While Piers 30-32 are an ideal location in conjunction with the Embarcadero and nearby Market Street transit. Mission Bay will prove ideal once the light rail hook up is good to go in 2019 the Warriors plan to open their new digs in the 2018 season.

Jerry Feitelberg is covering the new arena developments for the Golden State Warriors and the Sacramento Kings for http://www.sportsradioservice.com