The Seattle City Council has taken the final step in approving the $700 million redevelopment of the city’s iconic KeyArena.

Populous

The Seattle City Council has taken the final step in approving the $700 million redevelopment of the city’s iconic KeyArena.

The council voted unanimously last week to approve the deal with The Seattle Arena Company, or ArenaCo, which includes developer Oak View Group, which released the price tag information and updated renderings of the plan just last month.

The renovation comes as the city continues conversations regarding the return of professional basketball to the market, and the possible expansion of NHL hockey into Seattle as well. Late last year, the NHL approved the start of an expansion project for the city, which could see a new club taking the ice as early as 2020. The city's NBA team, the SuperSonics, left for Oklahoma City in 2008, but in the years since, the possibility of a new Sonics team (possibly another city's franchise relocating to Seattle) has been kept alive.

The Project

All updates to the structure will be done without touching the arena’s famous roofline. Since KeyArena is a designated historic building, four supporting pylons will first be installed so that the entire interior can be redone. The playing floor will reportedly drop 15 feet, to 58 feet below grade, allowing playing lines for hockey and basketball to line up.

An additional 50,000 square feet will be added for more storage and premium club space, which will offer views of the Space Needle. The capacity for the venue will be expanded to 17,400 for NHL games at 18,600 for NBA, meaning the building’s area will grow to 750,000 square feet.

Oak View tapped the joint venture of Skanska and AECOM Hunt as the general contractor of the project, with Populous as the architect and CAA ICON as project manager.

Construction is slated to begin this month and the structure is expected to be complete by the end of September 2019.