Opinion ID: 2609384
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Facts Pertaining to Private Use, Excess Condemnation on Recoupment Sale

Text: After an extended hearing, the Honorable Sharon S. Armstrong, Chief Civil Judge of the King County Superior Court, entered 41 paragraphs of detailed findings to which none of the parties takes serious exception. At the outset, the learned trial judge recognized the statutory imperative that an expansion to the convention center exhibit hall would not be approved absent a $15 million contribution in public or private funds. See Clerk's Papers (CP) at 41 (Findings of Fact ¶ 15, of Superior Court Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law as to Public Use and Necessity, dated June 9, 1997) (Findings). Although initial hopes had been entertained that the King County government would front the difference, it soon became apparent that the only possible source of these funds was from private sources and that such funds would not be forthcoming unless property in excess of that which was truly necessary for the convention hall expansion was condemned so as to allow for a private development potential. Thus, the proposed eastward expansion of the convention hall was discarded because it would provide no surplus property to induce the $15 million private contribution. Northward expansion, however, remained a prime candidate since only the air space, about 30 feet from floor to ceiling, would be necessary between four to six stories above the existing surface at a level between elevation 205 and 242 feet. CP at 43 (Findings ¶ 21). Thus the excess space below elevation 205, the ground parcel, could be used by a private developer, consistent with foundation columns, for retail, hotel, and parking facilities, in conjunction with a privately owned hotel tower rising above a portion of the exhibit hall roof (purchased, not condemned) in the extreme northwest corner of the project. CP at 43 (Findings ¶ 22). The north alternative was therefore specifically chosen because it provided this opportunity for private use, at government profit, whereas the east alternative was specifically rejected because it provided no private co-development opportunities that would produce a net financial contribution to the project. CP at 44 (Findings ¶ 26). The brief of the convention center emphasizes at some length the uniquely separate and private nature of the project below elevation 205, quoting James Ellis, Chairman of the WSCTC Board of Directors, that [T]he projects themselves are separate. They will be separately owned, separately managed, separately operated and not enter [ sic ] connected in an operational sense. But they are joined for purposes of construction for economies yielded to both parties. Report of Proceedings (RP) (May 13, 1997) at 83. The trial court specifically identified this separate private use: When the structures are complete, the privately developed space will be separately owned and operated from the Convention Center space, and the hotel space will not be interconnected to the Convention Center Space. The Convention Center and private spaces will be physically separate. CP at 48 (Findings ¶ 38) (emphasis added). Of particular importance is Finding 37 wherein it is acknowledged that the condemned fee was not only divisible from the public use servitude but specifically would be resold to a private developer: There will, however, be floors of hotel support facilities and other hotel use in the northwest block and after construction is completed, the private developer, Hedreen, will receive fee simple title to all surplus property in the northwest block, subject to the Convention Center's ownership of its Exhibit Hall space and easement or fee interest in the supporting columns, stairwells and utility chases, and subject to the terms and restrictions of the Development Agreement preventing the penetration of the Exhibit Hall. CP at 47-48 (Findings ¶ 37) (emphasis added). I therefore posit the determinative facts for our review may be summarized as follows: (1) The condemned property was specifically selected because of the government's intention to resell a portion of the seized space to a private entrepreneur for private use; (2) The space dedicated to private use will, as part of the same transaction, be deeded in fee to the new private user subject to an easement reserved to the convention center for the overhead exhibition hall and support; and (3) The private use, except for the financial consideration paid by its private owner, does not in any way, shape, or form contribute, relate to, or enhance the public exhibition hall use.