The Mariners are still trying to get it right at Safeco Field, even when the ball’s not in play. In 2005, the franchise and the state Public Facilities District (PFD)–the stadium’s governmental overseers–discovered that a protective coating beneath Safeco’s jade-green surface had blistered, putting some of the structure’s fireproofing at risk. The franchise then had the steelwork repainted for $2.5 million and tried to recover costs from the original contractors, leading to a lawsuit that was crippled when the M’s and the PFD filed their claim too late. Now they’re awaiting word on an appeal, which was argued last month before the state Supreme Court.
It’s a dispute that has unfolded quietly over the past two seasons, and the bottom line is that should the appeal fail, taxpayers will shoulder the burden, as the M’s can tap into a publicly financed account called the Excess Revenue Fund that’s been set aside to reimburse the team for stadium maintenance and repairs. (The fund is currently empty, but will eventually be supplied with future tax money.)
The M’s and the PFD say they prefer not to ding the public. But as it is now, “We’re going to siphon off money to fix things that should have been fixed by the contractors in the first place,” says PFD attorney Stephen Rummage.
Stadium contractors Hunt Construction and Kiewit Construction deny performing faulty work while building Safeco. The 47,000-seat facility opened in 1999 at a cost of $518 million, with $340 million, excluding interest, coming from taxpayers and the rest, including $100 million in cost overruns, from the M’s. The team and the contractors sparred over a number of post-construction issues, but ultimately agreed in 1999 that the stadium was “substantially completed.” At that point, the six-year legal window within which a party can file a contract dispute began.
According to the lawsuit, in late 2005, the M’s discovered “widespread delamination of the intumescent [fireproof] coating on the zinc primer” of the beams. (When heated, intumescent coating directs heat away from a beam.) Following a repainting, in August 2006 the M’s and the PFD sued Hunt/Kiewit, which in turn sued subcontractors Herrick Steel and Long Painting. Before the liability question reached trial, however, King County Superior Court Judge Julie Spector decided the window for breach-of-contract suits had closed before the M’s filed.
In their ongoing appeal, the M’s and the PFD maintain that the statute of limitations doesn’t apply to the PFD: as a government entity, it can be legally exempted when an action is brought, according to state code, “for benefit of the state.” But the contractors, in a brief, argue that, “Unlike taxing or taking property, policing or education, baseball is not a sovereign power of the State.”
Here, even some M’s fans might agree: Nobody wants to see Frank Chopp take the mound.
