King County Metro announced Friday that it has officially sold three of the five George Benson Waterfront Streetcars to the city of St. Louis for $200,000. The vintage streetcars have been idle since construction of Olympic Sculpture Park in 2005 razed their sole maintenance facility.

Metro has been looking to sell the cars for some time, and St Louis first expressed interest back in 2012. Metro is looking to expand its Sodo bus bases to accommodate a rapidly growing fleet, and they are also on the hook to repay $205,000 in FTA grants if the streetcars are not returned to service in some form.

In the agreement announced yesterday, Metro will retain ownership of the two cars but SDOT will store them elsewhere (location TBD) for an additional two years to buy time for a private venture called “Friends of the Benson Trolleys” to fundraise enough to retrofit them for a potential return to service. Though the waterfront alignment is likely permanently closed – and some of the Pioneer Square trackage has been removed and/or paved over – SDOT has indicated a willingness to mix vintage and modern cars if/when the Center City Connector is built. The high-floor, non-ADA compliant streetcars would need significant work to be able to share platforms with the South Lake Union and First Hill lines.

The private group Friends of the Benson Trolleys is led by a high-power group of current and former executives, increasing their chances of fundraising success. They include:

Tom Gibbs, Former Metro General Manager

Former Metro General Manager Ben Franz-Knight, Executive Director of the Pike Place Market Preservation and Development Authority

Executive Director of the Pike Place Market Preservation and Development Authority Don Blakeney, Vice President of Economic Development at the Downtown Seattle Association (and former Executive Director of the Chinatown-International District Business Improvement Area)

Vice President of Economic Development at the Downtown Seattle Association (and former Executive Director of the Chinatown-International District Business Improvement Area) Tomio Moriguchi, Chairman of Uwajimaya

Chairman of Uwajimaya Frank Shrontz, Boeing CEO from 1986-1996

At press time the group did not have a fundraising page that I could find. Stay tuned.

The full release from King County Metro is below the jump…