Equal parts consultancy and creative workshop, BEF INK facilitates process and prudent asset stewardship to develop vibrant civic spaces and meet community need.
BEF INK brings trusted experience and dedication to establishing thoughtfully considered investments that bring forward the strength and potential of civic realms, cities, neighborhoods, and organizations.
BEF INK cultivates new ideas with a passion for creating places and experiences that embrace community.
Benj Franz is the creative custodian of BEF INK.
Welcome to BEF INK.
Ready to help you and your organization find the path from pencil to indelible ink.
Expertise built on two-and-A-half decades of active management, building, and creating.
With professional, hands-on experience that has shaped significant investment in major institutions, including the Pike Place Market and the Santa Monica Pier, BEF INK brings unique expertise to major redevelopment, public programs, and management of complex projects.
BEF INK brings a passion for creative expression, relationship building, and commitment to community, to ensure prudent application of organizational and public resources.
BEF INK moves projects from ideas to action — from pencil to indelible ink.
Range of Services:
Project Delivery Strategy
Executive Leadership and Project Team Management
Design Team and Contractor Procurement
Funding and Financing Strategy
Contract Negotiations and Compliance
Public/Private Partner Negotiations and Structure
Project Visioning, Scoping, and Public Process
Public Speaking and Presentations
Risk Analysis
Budget Management
Schedule Management
Construction Oversight
Entitlement and Permitting Strategy
Public Art - Selection, Integration, and Creation
Creative Problem Solving
Peer Reviews
Organizational Readiness Analysis
Project Governance and Decision Making
August 23, 2015 - “Raw Power” Rooftop Concert at the Pike Place Market. A great reminder of the power of place, creativity, thoughtful planning, and saying YES. (Benj Franz - Executive Director Pike Place Market Preservation and Development Authority 2010-2017)
116 years of balancing municipal infrastructure, historic buildings, private business, non-profit management, concerts, events, filming, hundreds of artists, and millions of visitors - day and night. (Benj Franz - Executive Director Santa Monica Pier Restoration Corporation 2002-2010)
complex project implementation with far-reaching impact.
Challenging projects require a depth of experience, capacity to build relationships, and clarity to identify the right path forward.
A thoughtful process, driven by vision, prudent financial management, and achievable timelines can result in the spectacular. A process guided by the right sequential decisions and steadfast commitment can move the seemingly daunting and impossible to an outcome that is probable and actionable.
Three project examples are provided here: The Pike Place MarketFront, the Seattle Aquarium Ocean Pavilion Project, and Space Needle Elevator Modernization Project.
The Seattle Aquarium Ocean Pavilion - a lasting commitment to the environment, culture, place and institution. 7 years, 2 mayors, 12 different city council members, 1 pandemic, 5 month concrete strike, 3 major road shifts (with the building built in the middle of two of the old roads), and one stellar connection from the Pike Place Market to the New Central Waterfront.
Through the front doors, visitors are transported to the beauty of the Indo Pacific. Completed and opened to public August 2024. (Benj Franz - Project Manager - as Partner and Principal in Charge with SOJ)
Space Needle Elevator Modernization Project - precise (and concise) implementation. Raise the roof of the Space Needle 14 inches, raise the original machine off the floor, cut a hole in the floor, and lower the old machine 500’ down to a waiting flatbed.
Raise up the new machine, one of the seven largest elevator machines in the world, and replace the structural-steel floor. Place the machine and then fly in the world’s first outdoor, double-decker, all-glass elevator cabs.
Two years of preparation and nine months of round-the-clock work for the first of three elevators; now do it two more times, all while ensuring minimal impact to 365-day/year operations.
The first Skyliner double-decker glass elevator opened to the public May 2025. (Benj Franz - Owners Representative - as Partner and Principal in Charge with SOJ for Phase 1 and 2, BEF INK as Owners Representative Phases 3-5)
Pike Place Market MarketFront - a changing landscape as a catalyst for opportunity.
300 below-grade parking spaces, 40 units of low-income housing, a brewery, a bakery, a chocolate maker, artisan vendor space, and 30,000 sq/ft of public open space.
First project in place to establish the seamless connection to the new Overlook Walk and Seattle Aquarium Ocean Pavilion. Four years from concept development to completion. Funding included New Market Tax Credits, Low-Income Housing Tax Credits, State Grants, City of Seattle Grants, a philanthropic campaign, and the first PDA-backed bond issue in the non-profit’s history.
Opened to the public and new residents June 2017. (Benj Franz as Executive Director of the Pike Place Market Preservation and Development Authority - PDA).
Committent to process that drives decisions.
A thoughtful process provides the basis for increased project clarity, awareness of critical decision thresholds, and the right pace for advancing a project.
Deliberate public engagement, detailed review, and critique strengthen good projects. Great projects follow a process with decisions that move the project forward.
Current major projects: Healthpoint Tukwila Commons and Everett Outdoor Events Center.
The Everett Outdoor Events Center is in active design and site-acquisition phases.
The project is preparing for construction to be underway by early 2026, following several years of process: reviewing site options; conducting a full Environmental Impact Study (EIS); and securing commitments from the AquaSox (minor-league affiliate of the Seattle Mariners) and new men’s and women’s USL (United Soccer League) professional teams.
Well-informed public decision-making is driving a project that will anchor Everett as a regional destination. (Benj Franz - Strategic Advisor as a partner with SOJ and currently BEF INK as subconsultant to SOJ.)
Phase 1 of HealthPoint Tukwila Commons broke ground in June 2025. A multi-purpose medical clinic to serve the great Tukwila area also has space for child care and community-service office space.
Phase 2 will include housing, additional community programs, and commercial space.
a passion for creating with two hands, a brush, jigsaw, sawzall, and space to kick up some dust.
At its heart, BEF INK is a creative enterprise of innovative projects, creative solutions to challenging problems, and active time in the studio making dust, building, making and creating.
My work draws from the sprawling concrete of the built environment and the natural forms of towering forests, working with materials both raw and recycled. I have a BFA in sculpture from the University of Washington and have spent over thirty years engaged at varying levels in non-profits, the arts, and urban development.
I have been fascinated with the construction of objects from a young age. From riding my bike at age seven through the residential construction sites in my neighborhood to the massive urban-development projects I curate during the day, I am a student of processes, both complex and simple. Never one to really follow prescriptive directions, I revel in exploring just outside the lines.
Early inspiration came from skateboarding and the incredible freedom that exists at the convergence of form, function, fashion, play, and risk.
The July 1986 issue of Thrasher Magazine was transformational for me. My dad purchased it from “Skates on Haight” at my request when he traveled to San Francisco. (Thrasher was a bit hard to get your hands on in Pullman, Washington, where I grew up.)
I read the mag, cover to cover, hundreds of times. Page 31 features a “Step By Step” guide to a Backside 360’ Street Slide, featuring a young Stacey Peralta and complete with fashion accessory by-lines and a shout out to “Do-Wop Hair” in Santa Monica.
I never fully mastered the slide, but the essence of what was being described on that page was foundational in my approach to art and life — including Step #7, the last step in the process: “Ride off into the sunset, popping a nose wheelie with soul arch.”
One of my very early art endeavors was modifying a Nash Executioner skateboard, stripping the paint and adding my own black and white stripes and orange peace sign. I ultimately broke the board, and it became part of an early sculpture, nailed to a stool with my worn out, red All Stars screwed to the deck.
So ride on, enjoy the process, be inspired by the brilliance of others, and make your mark. Step by Step.
July 1986 Thrasher Magazine, Page 31.
Select works and Marks Made.
“Alligators Luden Ludos” - Park-scale marble shoot for playground balls, full-scale mock-up. 4’ x 3’ x 25’ plywood, acrylic paint, soccer ball, and one gregarious Poppo.
“Alive” Mixed tape 2024. 4’ x 7’ Maple plywood, acrylic paint, and beeswax. - Citizen M Hotels Seattle, Private Collection.
“High School Dance Nightmare” - 2022. Reclaimed maple gym floor, 1950’s stadium speakers, cassette tape player, cassettes, stainless steel cable. - The Longest Decade Group Show - 9th and Thomas.
“D Sherwood was Here - Series 1 - 2025” Pine board, acrylic paint, text from Don Sherwood Archives. Temporary Installations - Seattle Parks (various)
Bicycle Rider #8, 2020. Recycled plywood, bicycle fork and wheel, river rock.
“Spooled Right” 2025. Reused elevator cable transport spools from Space Needle Skyliner 1, concrete, beeswax.
“Sutilis Partes Reovationis” 2025 - 9’ x 6” x 13/5” Recycled violin, acrylic paint, violin strings and concrete. - Get Nice Gallery - Seattle WA
“Hello?” - 2024 Reclaimed maple gym floor, acrylic paint. 3’ x 3’.
“Sceliphron Caementarium” - 2024. Gold, yellow and black acrylic paint, reclaimed CDF. 2’ x 4’