Welts' new arena analogy: Warriors ‘on the 10 with a first down'

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OAKLAND -- Despite the medically related absence of head coach Steve Kerr and splitting the first two games on their preseason schedule, there was on Monday a bounce in the overall vibe at Warriors headquarters.

That’s because the team’s proposal for a new arena in San Francisco is almost close enough to feel. Team president and COO Rick Welts used a football analogy to clarify his optimism with the progress.

“It feels to us like we’re on the 10 (yard line) with a first down,” Welts said Monday afternoon. “So we’re feeling pretty good about the process.”

The project, on a Mission Bay site a few blocks south of AT&T Park, across the street from a University of California, San Francisco medical center, has made appreciable advances over the past week.

The Warriors announced Monday morning that they had completed the purchase of the land to be used for the proposed sports/entertainment/office complex. That followed two advancements last week, one with the team and San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee announcing the full support of UCSF and the other announcing the unanimous endorsement of the local Mission Bay Citizen’s Advisory Committee.

The project is gaining momentum even as an opposing group, the Mission Bay Alliance, continues to resist, noting increased traffic in the immediate vicinity of a medical facility.

The Warriors have moved forward ever since they announced last year that they were committed, with private financing, to building the complex at Mission Bay site. The team had previously sought to build on Piers 30-32 before that proposal was undone by a series of complications and likely cost overruns.

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The Mission Bay site has not yet received Environmental Impact Report certification. Once it does, Welts said, only potential litigation could slow the construction phase.

“We’re closer today than we have been at anytime since we announced the Warriors were coming back to San Francisco,” Welts said. “We still have to go through final certification of our EIR, which we’re expecting is going to happen by the end of this calendar year. That’s going to enable us to be in the ground in 2016.”

The team, which initially hoped to be in San Francisco by 2017, has been firm about a Mission Bay arena opening before the 2018-19 NBA season.

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