$6.3B Manhattanville Plan Gets Mixed Feelings

NEW YORK CITY-The Empire State Development Corp. board held public hearings this week on whether to allow eminent domain for the $6.28-billion expansion of Columbia University into Manhattanville. As GlobeSt.com recently reported, the ESDC board of directors adopted the Columbia University General Project Plan and authorized the public hearing to formally approve the University’s proposed expansion this fall.

The expansion project, which is expected to add up to 6.8 million sf of new facilities in up to 16 new buildings, has continued to gain some opposition from local Harlem residents, who worry about displacement. Many of the speakers at the two-day hearing opposed the plan. If eminent domain is used, all but two buildings in the area between Broadway and 12th Avenue and 125th and 133rd streets, will reportedly be bulldozed.

Expansion final phase

The two hearings Thursday at Aaron Davis Hall of City College consisted of testimony by community activists, residents, and Columbia students. Some community activists spoke out against the possibility of eminent domain in the area. An anonymous local real estate attorney, not involved in the proposed project, previously told GlobeSt.com that the ESDC will invoke its eminent domain power to assist the University in acquiring the remaining properties that it does not already own if need be. In that case, “those who are holding out for whatever reason,” the source said, “will be forced to sell to the ESDC.” The source noted that obviously there will be an outcry as there has already been for years.

Former Community Board 9 Chair Maritta Dunn pointed to construction inconveniences. “These people, many of whom have raised their children and contributed to the stability of this neighborhood, have to live with the errors, oversights, and purposeful misjudgments of those who purport to have their interest in mind,” she said. However, there were attendees who offered testimony in favor of Columbia’s plan and instead focused on the positives it will bring for the neighborhood and well as the jobs it will create.

According to published reports, if the board approves Columbia’s request for eminent domain rights in 17 acres adjacent to the Hudson River, “the area would be transformed from a low-rise, light-industrial neighborhood with century-old buildings to a sleek, glass-walled extension of the university’s campus that will house its business and arts schools and a science building.”