No monorail land sold yet

By Tim St. Clair

The sale of West Seattle properties from the aborted monorail project will end in mid-March, when sealed bids are opened.

None of the now-surplus properties have been sold, said Jonathon Buchter, chief of operations and one of four remaining monorail staff members.

The staff of the Seattle Monorail Project set a deadline of March 17 for potential buyers to submit bids to buy the properties.

The goal is to maximize the price of each parcel to pay off the monorail debt and stop collection of the motor-vehicle excise tax, Buchter said.

In an effort to get the highest possible prices, the top bidders will get a chance to outbid each other for each parcel. High bidders will have five additional days to increase their offers in hopes of beating the competition and winning the sale. Final selection of the highest bidders will take about two weeks, so the successful bidders could be known by early April.

The Seattle Monorail Project board of directors was scheduled to approve the property disposition plan at its meeting this week.

Prior to the March 17 deadline, the Monorail Project will market the properties through real estate listings, newspaper advertising and for-sale signs to increase bidding interest on each property.

The surplus property also will be listed on the Internet through commercial real estate websites and there will be a dedicated website with particular information about each individual property.

Some parcels probably will be sold individually, but there could be "aggregations of property" sold as one, Buchter said.

All tenants of the monorail-owned buildings received 60-day leases, Buchter said. None have been asked to vacate the premises, he said.

"Our intention is to sell the properties with tenants there," he said. That way the new owners will have the choice of either continuing with the current tenants or making changes.

Two tenants who decided to close their business are Betty Monroe and her daughter, Barbara Monroe. They've decided to close the West Seattle Video Vault on Feb. 14.

The building that houses video store, along with the lot next door where Fauntleroy Autoworks used to be, were purchased by the Seattle Monorail Project as site of the Morgan Junction monorail station.

When Video Vault opened in 1990, there were six independent video stores in West Seattle, Betty Monroe said. Today, Video Vault is the last of them.

The Monroes plan to reopen the store briefly Feb. 18, but only to sell their inventory of movies.

The Monroes started a video-rental business in Skyway about 20 years ago. A couple of years later they opened the store in Morgan Junction.

"It took off immediately," Betty said.

Soon they opened a third store in Des Moines and then another store in West Seattle, this one in the Admiral District. It was open seven years.

"I think Morgan Junction has been our best store, in terms of business and customers," Betty said. She described working there as "a social outing."

The Monroes looked all over West Seattle for another location but were unsuccessful. They've decided to get out of the business.

"We're definitely going to miss the video store," Betty said.

Tim St. Clair can be reached at tstclair@robinsonnews.com or 932-0300.