An appellate court decision handed down on Thursday "lifts a legal cloud" and clears the way for Sacramento and the NBA Kings to "launch what has been described as the biggest downtown development project in a generation," according to Bizjak & Kasler of the SACRAMENTO BEE. City officials, following the court victory giving them full control of the Kings' planned downtown arena site, said that they "plan to unveil key details" of the project in the "next few weeks, culminating in a formal City Council vote on the plan May 13." City officials said that they "were delighted" by the rejection Thursday of an "effort by the owners of the former men’s Macy’s store building to regain control of the property." Sacramento Assistant City Manager John Dangberg said that the city and the Kings "have been in negotiations and have agreed on major points of a private-public partnership" to build the 17,000-plus seat, $448M arena at the east end of Downtown Plaza. The arena is scheduled to open in '16, and if the completion date slips beyond '17, the NBA "has the right to buy the Kings and move them out of town" (SACRAMENTO BEE, 4/4). The Kings have already spent $36M "buying the rest of Downtown Plaza" (SACRAMENTO BEE, 4/4).
