Safeco Field

Seeing What’s Possible

Ground could indeed be broken in six months on a 45,000-seat stadium, without losing the important contributions of 22 existing businesses to the community.

Challenge 

Before the Washington State Major League Baseball Stadium Public Facilities District could play ball, it literally needed to assemble the field. The goal was to purchase all property on the SODO site without resorting to eminent domain litigation. However, there was an enormous catch: they only had six months to complete the process and relocate 22 businesses, one of which was a methadone clinic, visited every day by 600 recovering heroin addicts. 

Providing strategic advisory services on complex and highly charged public-sector projects wasn’t new to Kinzer, but the schedule was exceptionally ambitious. Construction was six months out, and a contested eminent domain process usually took 18. The pressure was on to stay within budget, come to agreement without litigation, and find appropriate relocation sites for each business.

Solution

Even though there was little time, Kinzer made the time to appreciate the important role each business played in serving the community, and to intimately understand the unique needs related to that role. Through an extraordinary ability to move both quickly and with sensitivity, an agreement on price and relocation for each business — including Filson’s, which had been on-site for nearly 100 years — was complete one month before the deadline.

Applied Expertise

• Strategic consulting
• Site assemblage
• Negotiation and eminent domain services
• Relocation services