Building 27 History
Arena Sports first opened operations at Magnuson Park in the Summer of 1999 with an outdoor inline hockey rink in the parking lot of the brink. Later that year we moved the rink into Building 30 and opened an indoor soccer rink in Building 2. The soccer rink was an adventure, moving into Building 30 and then back into Building 2. If you have ever had the opportunity to move a rink, you know how much we all enjoyed bouncing around the park! After 4 years of moving around, Seattle Parks & Recreation was able to give us a semi-permanent home in Building 2 where we have been for the past 7 years.
The staff and customers who have played and spectated at Magnuson Park over the years deserve badges of honor - perhaps Purple Hearts - for enduring some of the discomforts that accompanied their participation. We are all happy to say goodbye to the honey buckets and freezing cold temperatures. Not to mention the sub-par fields. We could never invest in the best field surfaces in the past because of month-to-month lease terms.
Thanks to the strong support from our customers, we were awarded the long-term contract in 2006. The ratification by City Council took another 2 years, and we finally got the green light in late 2008. We have since been working on the design and building permits, applying for permit in May of 2009. As of March 2010 we still had not received the building permit, but have been granted the ability to start the clean-up, abatement and maintenance portions of the project.
Building 27 is an historic World War II-era airplane hangar and Arena Sports will respect its historical legacy during renovation to transform it into a state-of-the-art indoor recreation center that houses athletic programs for the whole family.