Like many outdoor shooting facilities around the country, the Seattle Skeet and Trap Club is located on public property where its future depended on renewal of a long-term lease. Nestled in the pines southeast of Seattle, Wash., the SST is part of the King County Shooting Sports Park and has been since June 1997. When its lease came up for renewal, SST management hoped to expand the range and its offerings, but partway through the negotiation process those plans came to an abrupt halt.
“We had been working for two years with the county on a lease amendment to accommodate expansion of the range and other needed development,” said an SST spokesman. “The lease negotiation came to a stop when the county questioned not only the new range design, but the original design as well.”
Facing an unknown future, the folks at SST knew they had to eliminate the county’s concerns with the range design if they were to successfully complete the lease-amendment negotiations. In order to do that, they also needed help from someone with the experience to guide them through the process.
“Government organizations want professional references for all aspects of development projects, so we knew we needed assistance from someone with a lot of uncontestable experience, and from a reputable engineering firm. You have to understand their [King County’s] point of view; they have no range-design experts on staff,” the SST spokesman said. Read more….