City of Kent paid KOA $1 million to replace 30 campsites used for 18 months

Thirty new campsites, at the recently closed KOA (Kampgrounds of America) in Kent, will be among those removed to make room for a new warehouse after just 18 months of use and at a cost of $1 million to the city of Kent.

The city paid $1 million to KOA to replace 30 campsites lost by land needed for construction of a Green River levee. But those new campsites were short-lived after KOA sold its entire 8.1-acre property for $10.3 million in April to a California developer that plans to build an 100,000-square-foot warehouse next year.

South Dakota-based Recreational Adventures Co., which owned and operated the KOA in Kent, finished the new campsites in the spring of 2020, just a year before the property sale. The 189-site campground, 5801 S. 212th St., near Russell Road, closed Nov. 1.

The King County Flood Control District, which is constructing the Lower Russell Levee, reimbursed the city for the payment. The district is funded by property taxes and overseen by the King County Council.

The $1 million payment was part of a negotiation in 2019 between the KOA operator and the city of Kent about how to replace campsites lost by the company due to the levee project. The Kent City Council approved a land exchange of property in its Green River Natural Resources Area to replace the campsites.

“The city did pay KOA about $1 million (which included lawyer fees, engineering consultants, other costs in addition to construction) to build their 30 replacement campsites and was reimbursed from the King County Flood Control District for the work that went into that,” said Toby Hallock, city Public Works design engineer who helped oversee the project, in an email.

That former natural resources area will now become part of the warehouse property to be developed by Lift Partners of San Francisco.

The Flood Control District increased the payment to $1 million in March 2019 due to increased land values and construction costs. An initial city agreement with the KOA operator was to pay $700,000 for the property and relocation of campsites.

Hallock said the KOA started construction of the replacement campsites in fall of 2019 and wrapped it up in spring of 2020.

“The final payment went to them in fall of 2020,” Hallock said.

Recreational Adventures, which owned and operator the KOA, confirmed its closure and the sale of the property to a developer, but declined to answer any other questions from the Kent Reporter.

“The new sites were built just south of the existing campground on land that had previously been part of the Green River Natural Resources Area,” Hallock said. “The Green River Natural Resources Area land for the new sites was exchanged for the western portion of the KOA where the improved levee has been constructed.”

Because the city bought the natural resources property in 1993 with King County grants, it had to replace land lost in the KOA exchange. The city used its $55,000 purchase of the Suh property near the natural resources area to meet that requirement. The Flood Control District reimbursed the city for its purchase of the Suh property.