Cabela's Wholesale Inc. v. Hawks Prairie Investment LLC

MEMORANDUM

Cabela’s Wholesale Inc. appeals the district court’s grant of summary judgment for Hawks Prairie Investment LLC on its counterclaim for breach of contract. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291 . We affirm.

In 2005, Hawks Prairie bought the Lacey Gateway Property, 240 acres of land in Lacey, Washington, for commercial development. It secured Cabela’s as an anchor tenant for Lacey Gateway in 2006, by providing Cabela’s with 27 acres of land for ten dollars and $5 million payable when Cabela’s opened a 165,000 square foot store within one year of closing on the real estate.

Hawks Prairie and Cabela’s agreed that Cabela’s would continue to operate its Lacey store for at least 12 years, and that for 5 years after its Lacey store opened, Cabe-la’s would not open another store within 12 designated counties in Western Washington. Hawks Prairie agreed to start construction on 1,000,000 square-feet of commercial development within 10 years, with 6- and 8-year milestone requirements, and a “commercially reasonable, best efforts” goal for the first 4 years.

Paragraph 6 of the agreement provided that if Cabela’s breached the 12-year operating requirement, Hawks…