Koger says there are provisions allowing workers who are not currently a member of a union to be involved. For example, a non-union worker could satisfy union requirements by paying the dues normally required for union membership during the course of the project, he says. Turner is part of the joint-venture team building the $1.3-billion Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., also under a project labor agreement.

The publicly funded Sacramento arena's opponents, who are gathering signatures to require a public vote before the project breaks ground next year, are expected to receive a windfall of support from organizations that are dissatisfied by the PLA but may not otherwise have gotten involved in the anti-arena movement.

"We'll be announcing in the next couple of weeks our specific intentions," Christen says. "Right now, it’s safe to say the voters of Sacramento will have an opportunity to vote on this arena, and when they do that, they will be fully informed about everything that went into this witches’ brew of a deal."

John Hyde, spokesman for Sacramento Taxpayers Opposed to Pork (STOP), says the group is on target to deliver well over the 22,000 signatures required to force a public vote. "There have been a number of studies demonstrating that [arenas] don’t provide the economic value that the proponents claim," he says. "I don't think people are necessarily opposed to arenas. In fact, a lot of STOP's own supporters would really like to see an arena. They just feel it's a private business, and, as a private business, it should be privately funded."

The saga to retain the Kings in Sacramento after the NBA team was nearly moved to Seattle has created unusual bedfellows among both supporters and detractors. However, controversy over an earlier anti-arena ballot initiative effort—which was later discoverd to be funded by Chris Hansen, a hedge-fund manager who tried to purchase the Kings and move the team to Seattle—has clouded the local media coverage of the effort, Hyde says.

While STOP currently doesn't have an official position on the labor agreement or the CEQA reform measures, Hyde says using these measures to expedite the project "is premature, because it is quite possible that the citizens of Sacramento will vote against the arena."

If the project moves forward as planned, construction is expected to begin in fall 2014, with an opening date two years later. Turner is working on preliminary planning and designs with arena architect AECOM, Los Angeles, and Greenwood Village, Colo.-based project management firm ICON Venue Group.