By Rick Moriarty
Staff writer
An eminent domain action to take away the power of Carousel Center's anchor stores to veto the mall's expansion cannot be completed before the end of the year, an attorney representing a city agency said Tuesday.
The timing is important because Mayor Matt Driscoll says the 30-year property tax exemption for the mall and its expansion expires Dec. 31. Developer Robert Congel disputes that interpretation and says there is no end-of-the-year deadline.
Darryl Colosi, a partner in the Hiscock & Barclay law firm, said the Syracuse Industrial Development Agency could not obtain a condemnation order from a court until the first quarter of next year, even if eminent domain petitions were filed this month.
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Colosi met with the agency's board of directors Tuesday morning at City Hall to update the board about the issue. The meeting was closed to the public, but afterward Colosi answered questions about the time required to conduct an eminent domain action.
The property tax deal for the mall's expansion is triggered when the agency sells bonds to pay for public infrastructure work related to the expansion. City officials say the agency will not issue bonds until as long as the stores can halt the expansion.
That leaves two options: Congel could obtain the anchor stores' permission for the expansion, or the stores' veto power could be taken through an eminent domain action.
Congel's development team did not return phone calls Tuesday seeking comment. No one representing the developer attended the agency's meeting.
The developer has contended that an eminent domain action could be completed before the end of the year because the courts have upheld the agency's right to use its eminent domain power to take the stores' lease rights.
Congel wants to expand Carousel into a big retail, entertainment and hotel center called Destiny USA. He has said he would start with an expansion of 848,000 square feet of leasable space.
However, the mall's anchor stores including department stores J.C. Penney, Lord & Taylor and Kaufmann's have rights under their leases that require their approval for virtually any changes to the mall. They have said they are not necessarily opposed to the expansion but want to see definitive plans so they can determine how their stores, which have prominent positions in the mall, will be affected.
Colosi said the stores must be given 20 days' notice of an eminent domain action in state Supreme Court before the agency could meet with a judge. And it's likely that when that meeting occurs, the stores would ask for and get a delay until they can obtain appraisals of the value of the lease rights that would be taken from them, he said.
The court would consider those appraisals and appraisals done by the agency before setting the value of bonds the developer would post to ensure that the stores are compensated, he said. The court could then issue a condemnation order and settle the final compensation amount later, Colosi said.
But because of the time required for the process, the condemnation order could not come until 2006, he said .
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