State Declares Columbia Expansion Site Blighted
The Empire State Development Corporation today declared blighted a 17-acre swath of Manhattanville where Columbia University is seeking to expand, a major step toward allowing the state to use eminent domain to acquire the property of two businesses that have declined to sell their land to the university.
Opponents of the $6 billion expansion plan said the results of the study that found the area to be blighted were a foregone conclusion, because AKRF Inc., the firm hired by the state to conduct the report, known as a blight study, had also performed an environmental analysis of the same site for Columbia University. (Two courts have questioned whether it was appropriate for the state to have used the same consultant that Columbia did.)
The report by AKRF found that the area mostly comprised “aging, poorly maintained and functionally obsolete industrial buildings with little indication of recent reinvestment to revive their generally deteriorated condition.”
Columbia already owns most of the 17-acre area where it plans to expand. Among the exceptions are two businesses: a gas station and a moving and storage company that have refused to sell to the university. The development corporation’s report is significant because it could mean that the gas station and the moving and storage company will have to relocate.
The university plans to demolish all but four of the buildings in the area, which is bounded roughly by Broadway on the east, Riverside Drive on the west, West 129th Street on the south and West 133rd Street on the north.
At least one public hearing regarding the university’s expansion is planned, probably in September, said Warner Johnston, a spokesman for the Empire State Development Corporation.
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/17/state-declares-columbia-expansion-site-blighted/
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Columbia Expansion Expected To Get Boost From ‘Blight’
By PETER KIEFER,
The two remaining parcels of privately owned land in the footprint of Columbia University’s proposed expansion are expected to be deemed part of a “blighted” area, according to sources with knowledge of a report that will be presented to and voted on by the Empire State Development Corp. today. Adoption of the report’s finding would set the stage for a legal battle over the possible use of eminent domain by the state.
“I think that tomorrow the ESDC will most likely approve the general project plan and the blight findings,” a lawyer for one of the landowners who had read a preliminary summary of the report, Norman Siegel, said in an interview yesterday. “And we will oppose that, of course.”
At today’s meeting, the board of the ESDC will be presented with the findings of a blight study that was conducted by the environmental planning and engineering firm AKRF. Columbia owns 80% of the private property within the 17-acre expansion footprint and the city owns 5%. However, four facilities owned by Nick Sprayregen — who is being represented by Mr. Siegel — and a gas station on West 125th Street also remain within the footprint. During the past several years, university officials have been attempting to negotiate agreements with all property owners within the footprint.
Designating an area as “blighted” is legally necessary for the state to use eminent domain.
The ESDC will also vote on the adoption of the university’s general project plan, which would trigger a final public review process that would last until about November, at which point a final vote would be taken by the ESDC’s board of directors.
Sources familiar with the general project plan say it contains language in which both the ESDC and Columbia agree not to proceed with eminent domain on any residential buildings for 10 years — equivalent to the first phase of construction.
However, the language does not exclude nonresidential buildings, according to the sources.
Further complicating matters and possibly adding a legal foothold for Mr. Siegel was a ruling that came down on Tuesday from a state appellate court. The ruling upheld a June 2007 decision that said the ESDC’s decision to hire AKRF, which had also worked for Columbia, represented a conflict of interest.
State Senator William Perkins said in an interview that in light of the ruling, the Columbia University development process should be immediately halted because, if nothing else, it fuels “the perception of collusion” between the state, Columbia, and AKRF.
“It would seem to me that it would have been easy to get another consultant and avoid any stench of collusion, and it would seem to me very irresponsible to subject the agency and its credibility to such an easily avoidable accusation,” he said.
Mr. Perkins also told The New York Sun that he is creating a new task force to investigate instances in which the state has used eminent domain.
A spokesman for the ESDC, Warner Johnston, declined comment as did a spokeswoman for Columbia University, Victoria Benitez. A spokesman for AKRF, Tom Corsillo, said in a statement that AKRF’s “work ethic and integrity have earned them a place as an industry leader.”
Columbia’s $6 billion expansion project calls for new student housing, classrooms, and laboratory space on 17 acres just north of its Morningside Heights campus.
http://www.nysun.com/real-estate/columbia-expansion-expected-to-get-boost-from/82049/