(KRON) — The Golden State Warriors arena in San Francisco has been delayed by one year. The NBA’s best team will now move from Oakland in the fall of 2019.

KRON4 News has confirmed the delay with the Warriors spokesperson Lisa Goodwin.

The delay is due to a recently filed lawsuit.

The 18,000-seat arena will occupy the site of what is currently a parking lot across the street from the University of California at San Francisco’s newly built medical center at Third and 16th streets.

The Warriors were supposed to move to the new arena for the 2018 season.

Warriors spokesman P.J. Johnston has issued a statement:

After three years of official review, intense scrutiny and enormous public attention, the arena won approval from 100% of the agencies and commissions it went before. That includes the Board of Supervisors, where our EIR was upheld by a vote of 10-0.

The anonymous SuperPAC that emerged last year to oppose us failed to rally the community to their cause. They also failed to persuade the planning experts and regulators, and they lost every vote. Now, the SuperPAC’s last resort is to bring a CEQA lawsuit. It’s unfortunate, but in California, everyone has that right.

We’re very confident that we will prevail in court, just as we have prevailed throughout the public planning process, and in the court of public opinion.

The only thing this lawsuit will accomplish will be to waste everyone’s time, delay all the jobs and economic activity the arena will bring, and line the pockets of a bunch of lawyers.

Since we’re a basketball team, we have to think in terms of seasons. And the fact is, if we have to fight this thing in court over the course of 2016, we likely will be delayed by a season.

It’s disappointing, it’s wasteful, it’s harmful to the workers and small businesses and neighbors in Mission Bay who are counting on this new venue, but the reality is, we’re now looking at opening the sports and entertainment center in 2019.

But we won’t be deterred by any lawsuit. We always expected them to sue, and we expect to prevail.

We’re going to build a privately financed arena, with no public subsidy, on private property, and give San Francisco the world-class sports and entertainment venue the city has long deserved.

And the Mission Bay Alliance has issued a statement as well:

“This is a victory for the Mission Bay Alliance and the people of San Francisco who steadfastly opposed this massive arena and entertainment complex next to a children’s hospital in Mission Bay. The proposed 18,064 seat arena with parking spaces for only 200 vehicles would cause gridlock throughout San Francisco and harm the vulnerable patients of UCSF, biotechnology research, and neighborhoods that stretch from the Bay Bridge to the Bayview

The Mission Bay Alliance had urged consideration of an appropriate alternative location, yet the Warriors refused to consider it. We hope the City will use this one year delay to select a better site that will avoid further gridlock in San Francisco and protect the Mission Bay medical and biotechnology community. The Mission Bay Alliance thanks the community for its support over the last nine months and will continue to fight this project until it is removed permanently from Mission Bay.”

Mission Bay Spokesman Sam Singer

The group has filed two lawsuits since the project’s approval.

One, filed last month in Alameda County Superior Court, alleges that UCSF Chancellor Sam Hawgood did not have authority to negotiate an agreement with the Warriors over the project, and that he failed to negotiate in the university’s best interests. Hawgood and officials with the Warriors announced a memorandum of understanding on the project on Oct. 6, just days before Warriors officials finalized the purchase of the land for the arena from Salesforce.

The second, filed in Sacramento Superior Court last week, alleges San Francisco city officials violated state environmental review laws by failing to properly consider alternative locations and environmental impacts on traffic, air quality and noise.

The Warriors won unanimous approval of the privately-funded arena at 16th and Third streets from the Board of Supervisors in December, despite vocal opposition from the Mission Bay Alliance, a group that Johnston described today as an “anonymous SuperPAC.”

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, who has publicly backed the Warriors arena project in his city, could not be reached for comment this evening.Bay City News contributed to this report