Imagine you want to redo a room, but you don’t want to throw away the favorite umbrella over your bed. What do you do? First, you’ll have to prop it up, then move out all the furniture, and then build the room again. That’s roughly what the city of Seattle did with an entire basketball arena. This story began with a big celebration, continued with a sad farewell to a beloved team, and ended with the city learning how to protect its treasures.
A celebration and a hat-shaped roof
In 1962, Seattle hosted the World’s Fair. It was called “Century 21” because people wanted to show what the future would look like. The Space Needle was built for the fair, and it’s still standing today. A large pavilion was built nearby, and architect Paul Thiry came up with an unusual roof for it. It rested on sturdy supports at the corners, like a giant hat, so there was no need for columns inside the pavilion. There were no posts or braces in the way, leaving plenty of room for the fair—and later for concerts and sports.
The Seattle SuperSonics played in the pavilion. “Sonic” refers to sound, and back then Seattle was building airplanes that flew faster than sound. In 1979, the Sonics became champions of the National Basketball Association. Seattle residents still remember that year with pride and a smile.
Secret renovations beneath the hat
By the 1990s, the pavilion was starting to look old-fashioned for basketball. The city made a bold decision: it didn’t tear down the roof, but preserved it. Everything inside was dug out, cleared away, and rebuilt to create a modern arena called KeyArena. The renovation cost about $74 million. It wasn’t easy: the enormous roof had to be held up while construction crews worked beneath it.
But there was another side to the story. The team’s owners felt that the new arena was still too small and didn’t bring in enough money compared with the huge new arenas in other cities. They wanted a new building, and the city and its residents argued over who should pay for it. The building was beautiful and memorable, but not as profitable as the owners wanted.
Farewell in 2008
In 2006, the team was bought by businessmen from Oklahoma. The dispute over a new arena dragged on, and in 2008 the Sonics moved to Oklahoma City, where they became the Oklahoma City Thunder. For the fans—especially the children who had grown up watching the Sonics—this was very sad. Protests took place on Seattle’s streets, with people chanting, “Save our Sonics!”
The city went to court and received $45 million in compensation. But here’s the most interesting part: under the agreement, the name “SuperSonics” and the team’s green-and-yellow colors stayed in Seattle. It’s as if they’re waiting for their moment to come. The team’s trophies and memorabilia are kept at Seattle’s Museum of History and Industry, where anyone who wants to remember the old days can go see them.
The hat gets propped up again
The building didn’t sit empty. The Seattle Storm women’s team played there and won championships, and later Seattle got a hockey team, the Kraken. The arena was due for another renovation, but the 1962 roof is now protected by historic-preservation law: it can’t be torn down or damaged.
So the construction crews performed a real feat of engineering. The roof, which weighs about 20,000 tons, according to reports from the construction site, was supported by temporary steel braces. Beneath it, workers dug an enormous pit, even deeper than before, and built a new arena called Climate Pledge Arena. It opened in 2021.
The arena also has a fun feature: it takes care of the environment. Rainwater is collected from the enormous roof, cleaned, and then turned into ice for the hockey rink. So the rain Seattle gets plenty of becomes part of the game.
What this story teaches us
I think the most important lesson in this story is this: the decision made in 1995 didn’t keep the Sonics in the city, and that’s truly sad. But it preserved the hat-shaped roof, and now the roof serves new teams and new fans. The past and the present have made peace and now live beneath the same roof.
And the dream of bringing basketball back to Seattle is still alive. Many residents hope that one day the NBA buzzer will sound in this arena again and the old name will appear on jerseys once more. For now, the arena reminds us of one thing: if you love something very much, prop it up, be patient, and build something new around it without throwing away the old.
