NEW YORK CITY-The Appellate Division, First Department has unanimously affirmed an early ruling from a New York State Supreme Court, which ordered the cash-strapped Metropolitan Transportation Authority to pay additional monies to the owners of land the agency acquired through eminent domain. The land is located at the future site of the Fulton Street Transit Center in Lower Manhattan, currently under construction. Demolition of the buildings at the site, east of Broadway between Fulton and John Streets, was completed in September 2007, according to the MTA website.

The claimants were DLR Properties, an affiliate of the Riese Org., and the Collegiate Church Corp., which owned the real estate in question in a joint venture on behalf of the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church of the City of New York.

Warren Estis, lead counsel for DLR Properties, tells GlobeSt.com that the ruling had to do with how the parcels of land were grouped for valuation. “The issue that the court focused in on was whether or not there was a reasonable chance that the properties would have been assembled into one parcel if they had not been condemned,” Estis says. “The MTA had argued that they shouldn’t all be valued together and the lower court and the Appellate Division found that, had it not been for the condemnation, it would have been one full assemblage.”