You've heard the expression, "It's as easy as taking candy from a baby."

The city of Seattle has a different approach; it's trying to take prime real estate from a 103-year-old lady, Spokane resident Myrtle Woldson.

Woldson owns a 134-stall surface parking lot at the corner of Western Avenue and Spring Street in Seattle. Managed by Republic Parking Northwest, the property is across Alaskan Way from popular tourist destinations on Seattle's waterfront. Seattle wants the parking lot, which provides short-term parking sold typically for $3 or $4 an hour, so it can use it for short-term parking sold by the hour during the planned $2.1 billion project to build a tunnel that would replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct.

Puget Sound Business Journal reporter Marc Stiles has been following the story closely. In late October, he reported that the Seattle City Council voted unanimously and without debate to acquire the property either through negotiation or condemnation. Woldson has turned down repeated offers to sell the property.

Stiles, likening the city to Darth Vader in one of his columns, also has reported that while the city says it plans to use the site as a surface parking lot, Washington state Department of Transportation documents show plans for a large parking structure to be built on that site eventually.

Neither Stiles nor I have been successful in reaching Woldson, who always has been private and frequently has spoken through her legal counsel. She reportedly has turned down offers of up to $20 million for the lot. One report generated for the DOT suggests the acquisition price would be an estimated $10.6 million. While it's unclear what number the two sides come to the negotiating tables with, those figures suggest they are far apart.

Woldson reportedly has said she plans to bequeath the parking lot to a charity upon her death, and that charity would be able to decide the property's fate. Such a move would be consistent with Woldson's philanthropic track record.

The daughter of early-day construction contractor Martin Woldson who died in the 1950s, Myrtle Woldson is said to have created her own fortune through business investments, the Seattle parking lot among them.

In recent years, Woldson arguably is best known for her multimillion donation to the $31 million restoration of the Fox Theater, which reopened in 2007 as the Martin Woldson Theater at the Fox. The renovation project earned national recognition for the venue, which is home to the Spokane Symphony and hosts a number of other events throughout the year.

Woldson also gave $1.2 million to the city of Spokane in the mid-2000s to restore the Moore-Turner Gardens, located on a South Hill bluff overlooking downtown Spokane, and to rename it Edwidge Woldson Park, in honor of her mother. Woldson initially had agreed to donate more to the project, but declined after she asserted the city failed to deliver on a promise to cut down some trees to create views of the city. Ultimately, the Spokane Parks Board decided to rename the park after Woldson's mother in spite of the controversy, saying the donation largely was sufficient to restore the gardens and that the family deserved to be recognized for its commitment to Spokane.

Whether the city of Seattle resorts to condemnation of Woldson's property remains to be seen. On its surface, it seems as though it would make more sense to keep such prime property on the tax rolls and to work with private developers to encourage development of a parking structure there, if that really is the desired end result. Regardless, I'll be rooting for our philanthropic centenarian to get her way.