Oak View Venue Development CEO - part of the Memorial Stadium Remodel - Name in Fed Lawsuit

Seattle Public Schools is working together with One Roof Stadium Partnership (ORSP) - a group including the Seattle Karken, Climate Pledge Arena, and One Roof Foundation - as well as the City of Seattle to fund a new Memorial Stadium. (All bold mine.)

From a press release from the Schultz Family Foundation in January, 2025:

The philanthropic milestone announced today includes a lead gift of $5 million from Seattle Kraken owner Samantha Holloway and Climate Pledge Arena developer and operator Oak View Group, plus the project’s first corporate commitment from WaFd Bank, which donated $2 million.

Then we see a story in today's Seattle Times about Oak View Group:

A federal grand jury on Wednesday indicted the co-founder of Oak View Group, developer and co-owner of Climate Pledge Arena, for allegedly rigging a bidding process for an arena project at a public university in Austin, Texas. 

The indictment, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, alleges that from February 2018 to at least June 2024, Timothy Leiweke, CEO of Oak View, conspired with a competitor’s CEO to rig the bidding to develop and manage the Moody Center at the University of Texas at Austin.

Leiweke stepped down from his CEO position Wednesday.

Years of deception and no one else in the company knew or noticed? Sure. 

Oak View, a Denver-based company that works in venue development, management and hospitality, told The Seattle Times in a statement that it fully cooperated with investigators and “is pleased to have resolved this matter with no charges filed against Oak View and no admission of fault or wrongdoing.”

Oak View paid $15 million to enter a nonprosecution agreement.

Oh, so Mr. Leiweke did this ALL on his own? And Oak View paid to not get prosecuted. Sigh.

Separately, Oak View won the bid to renovate KeyArena into Climate Pledge Arena in 2017. The renovation cost $1.15 billion. Oak View is a majority owner of the stadium alongside the Seattle Kraken. Timothy’s brother Tod Leiweke is part owner of the Kraken.

A spokesperson from the Kraken said in a statement Wednesday the company is aware of the indictment but “today’s news has nothing to do with Climate Pledge Arena or the Seattle Kraken and does not impact the day-to-day operations of the arena, our team and our other Seattle projects, including the Memorial stadium or the potential return of the NBA to Seattle.”

Oak View was linked to a winning bid in 2023 to build a $150 million, 10,000-seat Memorial Stadium at Seattle Center. The bid went to One Roof Partnership, which has ties to the Kraken and Oak View.

Jamie Housen, a spokesperson for Seattle’s mayor’s office, said in a statement that the city is confident the public bid process for the Memorial Stadium project was “objective, fair, transparent and followed city standards,” adding the city received two bids, and One Roof was selected based on a competitive process.

 Right. Keep on moving, folks, nothing to see here.  

Except that the bidding process is NOT the only concern. I might have to ring up Housen and ask if that is their full statement. 

Seattle Schools absolutely owes it to the public - because they own Memorial Stadium AND because they are getting a big chunk of money from taxpayers for the renovation - to make sure EVERY single bid going forward for this project is squeaky clean.

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