Matt Griffin has earned the right to be a bit cocky about the mutually beneficial marriage between cash-rich and dirt-poor Washington Mutual and the cash-poor and dirt-rich Seattle Art Museum Downtown. But even he had crafted an early escape plan, if the deal collapsed.
In October 2002, WaMu and SAM had an agreement in concept. Each gave its architect six months to come up with a schematic design and then meld them. “There were times we weren’t sure it was going to work,” says Griffin, managing director of Pine Street Group LLC. If it hadn’t, WaMu and SAM had each agreed to pay their expenses and “go home, no harm no foul,” he says. But that didn’t come to pass.