Despite Earlier Defiance, Holdouts in Columbia’s Expansion Zone Are Down to 3

N.Y. / Region

Despite Earlier Defiance, Holdouts in Columbia’s Expansion Zone Are Down to 3

By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS
Published: December 21, 2007

When Columbia University began buying property north of its Morningside Heights campus for its planned expansion a few years ago, a group of longtime business owners formed an alliance and pledged never to sell.

Nick Sprayregen, a Harlem landowner,
is taking a stand against Columbia.
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Now, three years later, all but two of the six family-owned firms in the alliance, the West Harlem Business Group, have sold their property to the university, leaving the two owners increasingly edgy about what might happen next, as Columbia prepares to start the largest expansion in its history.

Those two businesses — both moving and storage concerns — along with the owner of two service stations who was not in the alliance, are the only remaining holdouts in the Manhattanville neighborhood. More than three dozen others — meat wholesale companies, auto body shops, restaurants, construction supply stores, tire repair shops, warehouses and a window manufacturer among them — have sold their property to Columbia and have agreed to leave once construction begins.

A Columbia official said demolition could begin by summer. The university has said it plans to keep only about three buildings in the narrow 17-acre stretch, which is bounded roughly by 133rd Street on the north, Broadway on the east, 125th Street on the south and Riverside Drive on the west. Columbia plans to move many of its science laboratories and business and arts schools onto the new campus eventually.

Thursday, a day after the City Council approved a rezoning plan to allow the university’s expansion, one of the three owners said she was too distraught to speak, another vowed to continue fighting all the way to the Supreme Court, and the third, the Singh family, owner of the service stations, declined to comment.

Columbia would not say whether it was negotiating with the business owners. It has said it owns about 90 percent of the privately owned property in the 17-acre area. It has not ruled out asking the state to invoke eminent domain to obtain the remaining commercial properties in the area.

Some of the buildings purchased by the university have been boarded up, apparently ready for demolition, and the university has some administrative offices in buildings that will remain standing.

Despite the impending changes, the neighborhood was active Thursday. People were eating Big Macs at a McDonald’s and arroz con pollo at La Floridita, changing worn tires at a repair shop without a visible name, and dropping off furniture at storage centers. Each of those businesses is scheduled for demolition.

Anne Z. Whitman, owner of Hudson North American, a moving and storage company on Broadway between 129th and 130th Streets, said on Thursday that the stress of the City Council rezoning vote had made thoughts about her situation too painful to discuss.
“I can’t talk without becoming emotional,” Ms. Whitman said during a brief telephone interview.

During an interview last year, Ms. Whitman said the university had offered her $4 million for her six-story, 35,000-square foot building.

“No way Columbia is going to steal this property right out from underneath me,” Ms. Whitman said in August 2006. “Remember that man who stood in front of the tank at Tiananmen Square? That’s me.”

Ms. Whitman’s father, Joseph A. Zuhusky, a former F.B.I. agent, started in the moving and storage business after he bought several buildings in Harlem in the 1960s and ’70s. Several of his children followed suit, and eventually Ms. Whitman and two of her brothers purchased their father’s buildings.

While Ms. Whitman operates Hudson North American, her brothers own Despatch Moving and Storage in a 10-story building a block up Broadway.

The family was among the founders of the West Harlem Business Group, and was among the most vocal about their unwillingness to sell. But in August, her brothers accepted an offer from the university, creating a family rift and leaving Ms. Whitman feeling isolated. The terms of the sale have not been made public, and a call seeking comment at Despatch Moving and Storage was not returned Thursday.

The second moving and storage owner is Nicholas Sprayregen, 44, who is also the largest landowner in Manhattanville aside from the university. He owns five Tuck-It-Away Self-Storage buildings, four of which could become targets of forced sale under the power of eminent domain.

While most of his 300,000 square feet of space is reserved for self-storage, he also rents space to an El Mundo Department Store at Broadway and 133rd Street, and to a C-Town Supermarket one block away at 134th Street.

Mr. Sprayregen, who has become the face of the opposition, makes no secret that he is wealthy.

He has vowed that he will spend as much money as it takes to keep the university from getting his property via eminent domain. On one of his buildings hangs a giant banner, reading “Stop Eminent Domain Abuse!” that is visible to riders on the No. 1 subway line through Harlem.
“This isn’t about money, I’m fighting them over principle — I strongly believe the use of eminent domain here is wrong,” said Mr. Sprayregen, who said he has finished 20 marathons but has stopped running in order to devote more time to battling the university.

“I have the strong desire — and the financial ability — to take this all the way to the Supreme Court,” he said.

Mr. Sprayregen said he had spent $500,000 so far, including hiring a lobbyist and Norman Siegel, a civil liberties lawyer.

His wealth does not seem to be a match for Columbia, according to city records. During the past two years, the university paid nearly $1.2 million to some of the city’s most powerful lobbying firms — including Bolton-St. Johns, Greenberg Traurig, and Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel — to push for the rezoning. Columbia officials say that figure includes legal fees.

The targets of their efforts included Deputy Mayor Daniel L. Doctoroff, Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn, Borough President Scott M. Stringer and Councilman Robert Jackson, whose district includes Manhattanville.

In recent weeks, Mr. Sprayregen said, he has talked with the university about trading his buildings inside the expansion zone for university property outside the zone. Columbia would not comment on Thursday about those discussions.

“What’s the need for the threat of eminent domain?” he asked. “It’s not like I’m standing in the way of a highway or a train track.”
Ray Rivera contributed reporting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/21/nyregion/21columbia.html?ref=nyregion