Columbia looks ahead to satellite campus after bitter legal battle

En route to Columbia, you may have noticed some checkered construction sites along 125th Street. As easy as they are to overlook, what you might not know is that they’re part of a long and heated court battle over the University’s plans to expand beyond Morningside Heights.

The clash began in 2003 when University President Lee Bollinger announced Columbia’s plans to build a 17-acre campus spanning from 125th to 133rd streets between Broadway and the Hudson River—an area known as Manhattanville. The first stage of construction, slated to be completed by 2015, will include new buildings for the Business School, the School of the Arts, and the Jerome L. Greene Science Center for Mind, Brain, and Behavior.

Since the project was proposed, Columbia has acquired almost every property in the expansion footprint. One by one, it has struck deals with all of the businesses and property owners in the area, with just two exceptions.

Tuck-It-Away Self-Storage owner Nick Sprayregen and gas station owners Gurnam Singh and Parminder Kaur refuse to sell their land, which they say is their livelihood. And though the University has already done some preliminary construction work, officials insist they need these last properties in order to fully realize the University’s vision for expansion.

So Columbia decided to obtain the properties through eminent domain, the process by which the state can seize private property for the “public good,” with market-rate compensation for the owner.

But it isn’t so simple.

In order for eminent domain to be used, the area must be declared blighted, meaning in a condition of disrepair beyond the potential for natural relief. To show that the Sprayregen and Singh properties were part of a blighted area, the University turned to the Empire State Development Corporation, an independent state agency that has the power to invoke eminent domain

In December 2008, ESDC declared Manhattanville blighted, setting off a fiery legal battle. Shortly after, Sprayregen and the Singhs filed lawsuits challenging ESDC’s determination, and since then, the battle has wound its way through the legal system. Columbia maintains that it is not a party in the case, as it is technically a matter between ESDC and the private property owners.

In December 2009, a surprise ruling by the New York State Supreme Court, Appellate Division reversed ESDC’s blight finding, declaring eminent domain in the neighborhood illegal—a major victory for Sprayregen and the Singhs. But ESDC appealed, and this June, the New York State Court of Appeals—New York’s highest court—ruled in the state’s favor, upholding the finding of blight and the use of eminent domain.

Sprayregen and his attorney, Norman Siegel, are now trying to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. By late September, Siegel will petition for a writ for certiorari. If this is granted, the Supreme Court will review the state court’s decision. But the odds are slim, as the Supreme Court has a grant rate of just 1.1 percent.

And so the fate of Columbia’s expansion plan hangs in the balance. We may not know for months whether the Supreme Court will even agree to hear the case, much less what it would decide if it did hear it. But while you’re getting acclimated to the Morningside Heights campus, keep in mind that there may be an entirely new one to explore just a few years down the road.