Source: Adam Brinklow - Curbed SF

It’s official. Barring any utterly unforeseen disasters, the Golden State Warriors will break ground on their new, 18,000-plus seat arena in Mission Bay first thing in the new year.

Contractor GSW Construction promised as much in their December 8 presentation to the Citizens Advisory Committee, and the San Francisco Business Times confirmed the January timetable last week.

The actual structure of the David Manica-designed arena won’t begin materializing until the third quarter, but demolition and excavation—the literal groundwork on what the team dubbed the Chase Center—can begin any day now, as the first permits went out in November.

The city approved the project (the city’s only indoor sports venue) nearly a year ago, but lawsuits from neighborhood interests held up the groundbreaking.

Neighbor groups like the Mission Bay Alliance fret that the structure, which will include nearly 700,000 feet of office and retail space, will invite traffic mayhem.

Although they lost seemingly their last-ditch court effort in November, the MBA and friends say they have yet more legal obstacles they can throw out.

(Of course, the Warriors themselves are also in the habit of keeping up the pressure even after repeat failures on the court.)

But the team has evidently decided it’s time to take the plunge no matter what.

Kansas City-based architect Manica said in an April interview that the glistening skin of the new arena will mirror (both literally and aesthetically) the waters of the bay.

Of course, when Manica’s original designs surfaced, Internet wags couldn’t help but compare its swirling shape and bright white palette to a toilet bowl.

But subsequent art suggests that was more a snafu in the composition of those images than the actual design itself. If all goes as planned, Chase Center should wrap up by the end of 2019.