from Chris Daniels of K5 News,
Construction on the new arena at Seattle Center will not begin until an NHL expansion team is awarded to the City of Seattle.
That was the substantial and surprise change to the final transaction and integration documents reviewed Friday by the Seattle City Council. Marshall Foster, who is leading the city's negotiations on the deal, said it was a change made after negotiations between the city and the Oak View Group (OVG) and the approval of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).
Foster told KING 5 it was important to include that clause as a way of verifying the financial wherewithal and backing of OVG, which the city would be in business with for the next four decades at least.
Foster says OVG was amenable to the change and it wasn't a substantial hangup in the negotiations.
Simply put, as it reads in the black and white of the "development agreement":
"The NHL Board of Governors shall have approved the application for and awarded the thirty-second (32nd) NHL expansion franchise to Seattle Hockey Partners LLC to be located in the City of Seattle, and delivered notice of same to the City, and Seattle Hockey Partners LLC and the NHL shall have executed the expansion franchise agreement."
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