Heeding a late plea from a longtime local business owner, county commissioners on Monday deferred a decision to pursue several acres of prime downtown property through eminent domain proceedings.
The board late Monday opted to delay the start of such proceedings after receiving a letter, hand-delivered earlier in the day to County Attorney Chuck Kitchen, from lawyers representing Scarborough & Hargett Funeral Home. The funeral home, a Durham fixture for more than 100 years, is one of two downtown businesses that own property coveted by the county.
"We have waited a long time," said Ellen Reckhow, chairwoman of the board. "Two more weeks or three more weeks is acceptable."
Before the delivery of the letter Monday, county commissioners appeared poised to begin eminent domain proceedings to gain control of the two tracts just south of the county jail.
County officials have eyed those parcels for more than a decade as a potential site for a new courthouse. Now, the county wants to act. The funeral home and a U-Haul agency are in the way.
While county officials have declined to discuss numbers, they acknowledge that their offers for the two properties -- fair market value as decided by independent appraisers -- have not been accepted.
In the letter delivered Monday, funeral home attorney Jay Ferguson asked for more time, saying his client is updating an appraisal but doesn't yet have a new sale price to offer the board.
The county and the funeral home owner, J.C. "Skeepie" Scarborough, have discussed sale prices for two years with little success.
Scarborough, the fourth-generation owner of the funeral home, would not reveal his asking price Monday but said he thinks his property is worth several times what the county is offering.
The tax value of Scarborough's South Roxboro Street property is about $1.1 million, and the U-Haul parcel is valued at $808,000, according to county records.
"It's not adequate at all," Scarborough said of the county's offer. "It's ridiculous."
U-Haul's negotiations with the county consisted of a single offer that U-Haul rejected, a company spokeswoman said Monday. The spokeswoman, Joanne Fried, said she didn't know the amount the county offered.
Last year, commissioners approved plans for construction of a six-story courthouse complex at a price of more than $80 million, which will be financed with bonds that don't require voter approval. The county reserved $2.8 million to buy the land for the project, which would house a number of county offices and include a tunnel connecting the jail and the courthouse.
Scarborough & Hargett was founded in Kinston in 1871 as a funeral home to serve blacks. The business moved to Durham in 1900 and already has moved twice since to make way for downtown projects.
"We've been through this three times," Scarborough said. "No, I don't feel good about it."
For Scarborough's business, the future isn't yet clear. He said before Monday's meeting that if he loses his property, he'd like to move to a new Durham location and possibly expand his current 11,100-square-foot operation.
"We're going to stay in business," he said. "It's got nothing to do with the business. It has to do with the property."
