An attorney for the land owner said the city is low-balling his client.
The real estate investor who owns land the city wants to take for its $350 million baseball stadium development project said the city's $1.9 million offer is "wholly inadequate."
In documents filed in Hartford Superior Court, an attorney for the Covered Bridge Ventures said that his client is "aggrieved by the statement of compensation." That is, the city isn't paying him enough for the 14 properties he owns and that it is taking.
Reached this week by phone, attorney R. Bartley Halloran said the city is low-balling his client. "We think it's worth considerably more," he said. Halloran also filed paperwork with the court asking that it release the $1.9 million to his client.
"As a result of the condemnation, the applicants will sustain a complete loss in business on the aforementioned property, making the immediate receipt of funds a critical issue," Halloran told the court.
Last month, we reported that the city had filed to take the properties in question -- not for a baseball stadium, but for a planned mixed-use development across the street.
Although the city never executed a purchase and sale agreement with the landowner, it said the parties had agreed on a $2.5 million price. In fact, the city council approved the purchase over the summer.
But then, the city said, the landowner changed his mind, and wanted to sell the city less land at a higher price per square foot. That's when negotiations broke down, and the city decided to use eminent domain to take the land.
In its filing to take the land, the city made no mention of its statutory authority for doing so. It also didn't mention something else: it's taking the land so it can build housing, retail, and office space as part of its stadium development to bring the New Britain Rock Cats to town.
Instead, the city said it wants to take the property "to create a development which would complement the newly constructed Public Safety Complex." (See some photos of the complex here.)
So far, Covered Bridge Ventures doesn't appear to be questioning the city's ability to take the land. But even the city has acknowledged that it may be in court for a while fighting over the price. In the end, whatever price the court decides the land is worth is the price the city will have to pay.
