Renting a kayak to paddle around the shores of Magnuson Park was ridiculously cheap last summer. Rather than up to $20 an hour or $70 a day, which is standard for a private company, Sail Sand Point has offered annual “use passes” to the public. A yearly pass is only $1 for kids and $175 for adults.
“This is the only low-cost, not-for-profit sailing club at Magnuson Park,” says neighborhood resident Gail Chiarello. The nonprofit sailing school has operated rentals and training programs for adults and kids for 13 years. But this may be its last summer in Magnuson Park’s Building 11, as private development company Ravenhurst prepares to take over the building’s operations.
Particularly concerned is Morgan Collins, executive director of Sail Sand Point, who says parts of the proposed lease “clearly aren’t meant to encourage a business of our nature.” Among them: a stipulation that Sail Sand Point must stop renting kayaks to the public. Another states that if building tenants—which include private office users and a children’s clinic—complain about noise, the nonprofit’s tenancy can be revoked. “They refuse to negotiate on these points,” says Collins, who has been in talks with Ravenhurst for over a year.
Ravenhurst president Darrell Vange (who also backed a controversial yet unsuccessful attempt to build a shopping mall next to the Little Saigon neighborhood) says that it’s the nonprofit that’s refusing to cooperate. “Right now, we couldn’t rent space to a kayak company because they wouldn’t be able to compete with Sail Sand Point’s subsidized rental prices,” says Vange (profits from the sailing programs and storage rentals bankroll the cheap kayaks).
If Sail Sand Point gets booted, Chiarello says, Magnuson’s Building 11 “is just an office building in a park.”
Vange disputes this, arguing that he’s required to keep 8,000 square feet of the building for water-related uses. “If we don’t put Sail Sand Point in that space, we’d have to find someone else.”
This is exactly what Sail Sand Point fears—that Ravenhurst would use its strict rules to kick out the nonprofit and usher in a private marina club. “We’re hearing from citizens who are, frankly, pissed off,” says Seattle City Council member Nick Licata. “They think the developer is planning to put in a yacht club.”
Supporters of Sail Sand Point hope that Vange’s partnership with the city may fall apart. In 2008, the city inked a deal with Ravenhurst to renovate the dilapidated building—with the stipulation that Sail Sand Point stay put. The deal will net the city $8 million in rent over 40 years (as well as $9 million in building improvements). Vange is now lobbying the city to sweeten the deal with an additional 13,000 square feet of park space.
It’s unclear whether the city council will approve such an extension—or if the council still supports the public-private partnership.
Licata, for one, is skeptical: “Our main public benefit is to keep those tenants in that building, and that’s not happening,” he says. “The council understands that right now [the developers] haven’t met their part of the agreement.” 
Need to point out that the City is dealing not only with Darrell Vange but with a new partner to his LLC, Moss Echelbarger who apparently in putting up the $2.8M of equity financing the LLC needs. Patrick Echelbarger is no friend of Seattle Democrats. He was a 2004 contributor to the Swift Boat Veterans who helped bring down John Kerry in the final weeks of the campaign. What if anything does the City owe these Johnny-Come-Lately’s to the deal? Does it really feel it has a pre-existing commitment to allow Moss, Echelbarger the opportunity to plunder a public waterfront facility for private gain?
Just askin.
Full disclosure: I’m a Democratic PCO in the 46th LD and former UW grants manager whose numbers-crunching suggest there’s no $8M benefit to the City under this deal–it’s more like $2M. If the City retains management of the building with the current tenants–artists, Sail Sand Point, and others–it nets anywhere from $12-420M over the 45-year lease term.
The so-called “amended” lease is a whole new deal and it has migrated very far from the intent of the original RFP to preserve arts, cultural & recreational opportunities in Builing 11.
The City should look at it with fresh eyes, or, better yet, scuttle it in favor of a whole new RFP.
It’s the shits when water access is taken away from people who don’t have lots of disposable income to spend on buying boats, or renting them from high priced private for profit companies. As a passionate boater, I think that people who want access to the water and boats should have that enjoyable opportunity if they want it. Kind of reminds me of our shitty health care system, only on a recreational level. But recreation and art, which are both deemed superfluous ad naseum by Republicans, is essential for a healthy, happy society. Damnit.