Spread the wealth, give an arena to Tukwila and not Seattle

Western Washington is, perhaps, one step closer to a basketball and hockey arena in the city of Seattle as the final environmental impact statement for a new SoDo arena has been released.

And it found, in the words of Mayor Ed Murray, that “no major findings stand in the way” of the arena.

Investor Chris Hansen responded Thursday morning, “It is a major milestone in our journey to bring the NBA and NHL back to Seattle.”

Related: SoDo arena has competition in Tukwila

He wrote on his website that his investment group is entirely supportive of an NHL team playing in the arena &#8212 and is open to that happening before an NBA team.

Honestly, I don’t really want this to go forward. Not for any environmental reasons, but because we have a competing plan to bring the NHL to Tukwila and I think they should get it.

RLB Holdings Sports and Entertainment, led by CEO Ray Bartoszek, filed code interpretation paperwork with the city of Tukwila in April, stating its intention to build a multipurpose arena, and I hope it gets approved.

Tukwila is better located and equipped to handle the traffic woes that will come with a new arena and team.

Tukwila is ten minutes from downtown Seattle and closer for folks who want to come from Pierce County and the Eastside.

City leadership has done everything to hurt drivers in Seattle &#8212 to ignore the driving experience, to ignore the reasonable demands of the drivers. All they’ve done is make it so that Seattle is an exclusive city &#8212 if you live in and around the areas where city leaders live, you’re golden. You can walk or bike or bus around. If you don’t, then you’re screwed.

It’s a city that takes away parking spots for parklets no one uses nine months out of the year. And the ones who do enjoy them are locals &#8212 no one is driving in from Everett or Puyallup to read a Kindle in one of these parklets.

It’s a city that has such a bad parking problem, they’re jacking up prices on parking to force higher turnover &#8212 but at the same time, they’ll claim there’s an oversupply of parking spots.

So why are we rewarding a city that’s inhospitable to outsiders?

Why reward a city with a team that brings in outsiders temporarily, so the city can take their tax dollars and exploit their interest in the NHL or NBA, then mistreat them every other day of the week?

Driving to the city for a game is getting harder and harder, and if you add another team to the mix, it’s only going to get worse. That family from Spanaway or Lynnwood isn’t getting to the game on a bike, and they’re not very likely to take Metro all that way. It’s a nightmare. They’re going to drive.

They would have a much easier experience driving to Tukwila.

I’m also OK with spreading the wealth around. There’s a report from Gene Balk of The Seattle Times suggesting folks are moving out of the city because they can’t afford it. Well, they’re moving to places like Tukwila, Renton, Tacoma, Lynnwood, and Bellevue.

Let’s make the surrounding areas go-to spots for some of these entertainment venues. I’ll happily make the drive to Tukwila to check out a Sounders FC 2 match.