How Sacramento Won NBA Franchise : Cities: Commitment and favorable conditions helped enthrone the Kings in a new indoor arena.

The most recent major sports franchise to be lured to a new indoor arena in California was the National Basketball Assn.’s Kansas City Kings who moved to Sacramento in 1985.

This is all it took for owner Gregg Lukenbill and his partners to pull it off:

--They began lobbying city officials in the 1970s for a facility.

--They obtained interest in 6,000 acres of agriculturally zoned land on the outskirts of downtown.

--They paid $10.5 million in 1984 for a wilting Midwestern pro basketball franchise.

--They struggled through two years in the red in Kansas City until the team’s arena lease expired.

--They spent $11 million to convert what essentially was a warehouse into a makeshift, barely 10,000-seat temporary arena outside Sacramento city limits.

--They persuaded Sacramento officials to allow a permanent arena within city limits.

--They agreed to cover the costs to widen streets and construct freeway off-ramps, plus all of the attendant underground plumbing, sewers and other necessary improvements.

--After three years in the cramped Sacramento Arena, they opened the 17,000-seat ARCO Arena, complete with 30 luxury suites. Price tag: $60 million.

Not the least of the obstacles was stiff political opposition from environmentalists, who pointed out that the city’s growth policy called for other areas to be developed first.

“But I think everybody now, including the environmental community, is happy,” said Maurice Reed, who handles governmental relations for the Sacramento Sports Assn., the private firm owned by Lukenbill and three other investors.

The Environmental Council of Sacramento, a nonprofit coalition of environmental groups, filed six lawsuits challenging the development plans that included the arena. Mike Eaton, former chairman of the group, said the lawsuits against developers and the city were settled.

“We think we got major improvements in the plan, particularly with air pollution control,” Eaton said. “We are working together now in a problem-solving mode. We’re pleased with the way in which we have been able to work with the developers.”

Lukenbill and his partners have good reason to be pleased. As part of the arena deal with the city, their land was rezoned to permit residential, commercial and industrial development. The land’s value soared from about $2,500 an acre as farmland to as much as $500,000 an acre.

Sacramento sports fans seem pleased too.

The Kings, who are winning no more often in Sacramento than they did in Kansas City, have sold out every game since arriving in 1985.

Another party pleased with the Kings’ move was the Golden State Warriors, based in not-too-distant Oakland, Reed said.

“That involved some concessions to the Warriors for several years,” he said. “It ended up with money in their pocket.”

Lukenbill said an agreement with the Warriors was reached in which the two teams played preseason games in Sacramento and split the proceeds.

“We called it a joint marketing program that worked out pretty good for both of us,” he said. “We ended up playing five years worth of exhibition games against each other in our building and when we played down there we sold tickets for the Warriors.”

He estimated that the cash value benefit to the Warriors was $900,000 to $1 million.

Sacramento’s success was the result of a rare melding of numerous vital elements, not the least of which were the availability of land, financially capable private backers, a franchise ripe for a move and a local government interested in seeing it happen.