On the assumption that the monorail board doesn’t find a way to revive it’s dying patient, the Puget Sound Business Journal had an interesting article on what might happen with the 34 properties that the Seattle Monorail Project (SMP) has already purchased. They mention that some of the properties, like the 7-11 store in Ballard, could fetch a quite a lot of money on the open market. I was surprised to find that through the process of eminent domain, the SMP could only offer the “appraised value” for the properties they bought. I (wrongly) assumed that the SMP was giving property owners some type of premium (on top of “relocations costs”).
I have no numbers to back this up whatsoever, but wouldn’t be ironic if the Seattle Monorail Project was able to close up shop having made a profit from all the properties that they bought at appraised values?
A bitter irony indeed.
If the SMP stays alive long enough, the “SMP” could “break even” (the rents of properties covering both debt service and staff costs”) — then maybe in ten years time if the taxpayers are still not impressed with whatever the agency comes up with (after studying the options to death) – maybe us taxpayers could get all their money back! I say lets lets see what the new bidders (Bombardier, Monorail Malaysia, and HSST) propose before we write the project off.
I think that there would be a huge outcry if they did sell off the property’s at a profit. It would also be extremely unfair to those whom had to relocate. I hope they didn’t do that!
Walt