Dive Brief:

• The Mission Bay Alliance, already embroiled in a legal action with the Golden State Warriors over the location of the NBA team's new arena in San Francisco, has also appealed the city’s approval of office towers that are planned in conjunction with the arena complex, according to the San Francisco Business.
• The Alliance’s appeal is based on the city’s annual Prop M cap on high-rise development, but the Warriors said their development will actually free up space under Prop M allocations, resulting in a net 100,000 square feet returned to the Prop M pool.
• The Alliance lawsuit trying to stop construction of the proposed arena — which will be located across the street from University of California, San Francisco women’s, children’s and cancer hospitals — claims that the 18,064-seat facility does not adequately address traffic, air quality or noise concerns.

Dive Insight:

"This is just the latest example of the City overlooking clear violations of the law in order to jam through an ill-conceived sports arena," Mission Bay Alliance representative Bruce Spaulding said in a statement about the council’s approval of the towers. "The office space proposed for the Warriors development will swallow the remaining office space in Mission Bay and stifle the possibility of further growth and success of the area’s thriving biotech and health science sector."

The arena plans include two office towers and a large plaza with shops and restaurants. The Alliance and arena opponents said they would like to see more biotech companies in the area, as well as more space for UC San Francisco to expand.

The Alliance, which is comprised of current and former faculty from UCSF as well as nurses and families of hospital patients at UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay, said it is a case of "very bad planning" to allow the arena to be built 1,000 feet from "an emergency room in an area designed for biotech."

Warriors spokesman P.J. Johnston told the Business Times in an email, "It should be noted that this project isn't just about a state-of-the-art arena, public plazas, parks, restaurants, cafes and offices — all privately financed, all community serving — but the Warriors are also generating $25 million for affordable housing in Mission Bay."

The Alliance's previous lawsuits resulted in the team pushing back the opening of the arena by one year, and rumors abound that the Warriors are contemplating buying the old Oracle arena in Oakland rather than building their own in Mission Bay.

In October, the Warriors selected the joint venture of Clark Construction and Mortenson to build the arena, and both companies have extensive experience tackling major league sports venues.