Say you are a real estate investor.
Say you buy a piece of property and shortly thereafter a major hotel chain decides that they want to build one of their hotels on it.
Unfortunately for you and said hotel chain one single swamp loving local enviro-wacko holds your project up for 19 years because he can.
A 19-year struggle to build a hotel near the Mercer Slough wetlands apparently is over, with groundbreaking on the seven-story building set for this summer.
Marriott bought the property Jan. 20 for $4.25 million and plans to build a 231-room Residence Inn there. The project still needs city building permits, but they are expected to be approved soon, city officials said.
Bellevue-based Fluke Capital Management, led by general partner David Fluke, first applied in 1987 to build a hotel at 605 114th Ave. S.E., on the southeast edge of downtown. Once the project was approved, Fluke planned to sell it to someone else to build — but the sale took nearly two decades.
Fluke needed to obtain permits from the state Department of Ecology and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and local activist Geoff Bidwell opposed him every step of the way.
Through countless court dates and environmental impact studies and the passage of new laws, all brought on by this one tree-hugging ass, this sale and the subsequent construction have been held up for almost two decades.