Council OKs property condemnation

RALEIGH -- The City Council voted 6-1 this afternoon to allow a condemnation lawsuit to be filed against a major downtown property owner whose permission is needed to build the City Plaza.

The city attorney’s office could file a condemnation lawsuit as early as two weeks from today against The Simpson Organization. The condemnation action would not take any actual property from Simpson; it would just give the city the easement it needs to proceed with construction of the City Plaza.

Simpson is the owner of the Bank of America building and the underground parking garage directly under Fayetteville Street. For more than a year, the city has been negotiating with the Atlanta company to obtain the easements it needs to put the plaza and roadway over the company's property.

The plaza is to be a high-tech gathering place that can be closed to cars and reconfigured to accommodate parades, markets or concerts.

City Manager Russell Allen recommended condemnation after concluding that negotiations between the city and Simpson could drag on indefinitely. Allen said that since May 2007 the price of building the plaza has increased 10 percent, or more than $2 million, because of rising construction costs.

“Time is critical here,” Allen said. “Time is also money.”

A. Boyd Simpson, the president of The Simpson Organization, sent a letter to Allen on Monday warning the city not to pursue condemnation against his company. The company submitted another document titled “Facts Regarding Negotiation of City Plaza Easement” to the City Council today.

It includes a long list of complaints about how the city has mishandled the negotiations.

According to Allen, the dispute involves the level of oversight Simpson wants over construction of the plaza, as well as the amount of liability the city would be exposed to. Simpson accuses the city of the same thing: asking for unreasonable terms.

Councilman Philip Isley was the only council member to vote against the condemnation authorization. Mayor Charles Meeker Meeker recused himself from the vote because an attorney in his law firm is representing Simpson.

Councilwoman Mary-Ann Baldwin asked City Attorney Thomas McCormick whether progress had been made in the negotiations since the city announced it would seek condemnation.

McCormick said some progress has been made, but he also recommended granting condemnation power in case it is necessary. City officials had hoped to complete the plaza by September, when the new convention center is scheduled to open. The earliest the plaza could open now is August 2009.