Eminent domain is broadly understood as the power
of the state to seize private property without the owner’s
consent. Historically, the most common uses of property
taken by eminent domain are public facilities, highways
and railroads. Traditionally the power of eminent
domain has been exercised for the construction of large
public projects, but its use is beginning to be broadened
to projects involving not ‘public use’ but ‘public benefi t.’
That use is in question in Fayetteville, as the city
continues plans to build the multi-modal transportation
center on land it does not own. The Multi-Modal
Transportation Center has been a long-time in the
making and the
storm surrounding
it has been as well.
First proposed in
the late 1990s,
the center started
gaining traction
in 2008, when a
site-selection study
was undertaken
by Charlottebased
fi rm, HGA
Architects. The fi rm
was hired by the city
to draw up plans for
the proposed center, which would bring the city’s key
public transportation hubs together. The fi rm looked at
six sites around the city’s center, including the existing
site of the Fayetteville Area System of Transit and the
Amtrak station.
The idea behind the multi-modal transportation
center is to bring all forms of public transportation
under one roof to allow for ease of transfer and greater
use, while creating retail/business opportunities that
would blend with and benefit the patrons of public
transport. This idea has gained popularity over the past
two decades, with the North Carolina cities of Charlotte,
Greensboro, Raleigh and Durham embracing the idea.
Facilities in several of these cities are located in the
historic train depots, including the site in Greensboro.
The Greensboro facility is housed in the historic train
depot, which includes 68,000 square feet of passenger
platforms, a 6,500 square foot interior addition and a
5,700 square foot interior renovation, which included
the move of the Greensboro bus service to the station.
Greensboro sees more than 35 trains passing through
the station each day. The J. Douglas Galyon Depot, a
multi-modal transportation center, serves as the main
passenger transfer for the Greensboro Transit Authority,
as well as a hub for Amtrak, PART and Greyhound. The
GTA serves approximately 260,000 people, with 15 GTA
routes operating Mondays through Saturdays and seven
routes on Sundays. In addition, there are fi ve connector
routes, the Career Express serves the airport area, and
nine Higher Education Area Transit routes. Together,
GTA and HEAT vehicles drive 2,170,000 revenue miles
per year, more than 231 miles of GTA routes, 49 miles
of GTA connectors, and 59 miles of HEAT routes. At
last count, there were 1,056 GTA bus stops and 46
HEAT bus stops in Greensboro and Jamestown. GTA
and HEAT serve more than four million passenger trips
per year. SCAT vehicles drive 1,400,000 revenue miles
per year.
GTA has an operating budget of approximately $19.5
million annually, which includes operating expenses of
the J. Douglas Galyon Depot. The Piedmont Authority
for Regional Transportation also runs out of the facility.
PART Express is the regional bus system connecting the
major cities of the Piedmont and bringing people from
the outlying counties into the urban areas. Fourteen
PART Express Routes are offered during weekdays with
two routes running on the weekend. PART vehicles
drive 60,000 revenue miles per year. There are 23
Park & Ride lots scattered across the Piedmont Triad.
PART served 544,061 passenger trips in FY ’09 with an
average length of 26 miles.
Needless to say, a multi-modal transportation center
makes sense in Greensboro, although the much touted
retail space has yet
to be fi lled. As late as
June of 2010, there
were no restaurants
or coffee shops in
the facility to serve
the many riders who
passed through its
hallways, although
retail space is a key
tenant of multimodal
centers. In
June 2010, a coffee
shop/bagel shop
opened in the facility.
The lack of interest in locating businesses in facilities
like Greensboro’s J. Douglas Galyon Depot, is one
of the reasons local business owners are still fighting
against the city’s 2009 decision to use the power of
eminent domain to seize land already used by local
business owners for use as Fayetteville’s multi-modal
transportation center.
At the center of the fight is Jacqueline Pfendler, the
owner of J.P. Electric, whose business is situated on the
land bounded by Robeson, Franklin, Winslow, and West
Russell Streets. Consisting of seven parcels, the land was
one of six sites offered up by HGA in 2008 as possible
sites for the new center. It was not, in fact, the fi rst,
second or third recommended site. It was sixth on the
list of six.
The first site recommended was the Amtrak station,
which is adjacent to city-owned property. That site was
turned down by city offi cials despite the arguments
of HGA for its merit. On Nov. 8, 2008 after hearing
the recommendations from HGA, city offi cials took a
tour of the six sites, focusing on the sixth site. During
the interim period, Pfendler and her family purchased
a major section of the land to locate their electrical
business. The building, which currently houses the
business was renovated from top to bottom, with custom
woodwork done throughout. It wasn’t until Pfendler
was in the middle of applying for a city grant to update
the building in the historic district that she learned
the city was interested in the space. Pfendler saw the
facility up for sale while in town visiting the Dogwood
Festival. She contacted the realtor who did not mention
the city’s interest. Her bank was unaware of the city’s
interest and the landscape company she hired to drawup
plans for parking and landscaping, owned by then
City Councilman Wesley Meredith did not mention
the city’s interest. “People say I was stupid, and should
have known, but no one told me, including the city
councilman I was paying money to — and he was the
one who made the motion to condemn my land.”
Today, Pfendler is faced with losing the business she
worked so hard to create to the city, so that another
private entity can build a building to house private retail
space on her land. The city has made Pfendler an offer
on her land, but what they are offering will not allow her
to purchase a new lot in a desirable location, let alone
build a new facility.
Pfendler’s frustration is shared by others in the
community, including Joel Smith, the owner of
Homemakers Furniture. Smith, a long-time Fayetteville
business owner, is not directly affected by the city’s
land grab, although his business will be located nearby
the facility. Smith sees it as back-door politics gone
wrong. He noted that many of the entities who should
have been included in the site selection were ignored,
including the Downtown Alliance and the Cape Fear
Valley Hospital Board of Trustees. The CFVH board
came out against the site because of environmental
concerns about the exhaust fumes from the buses that
would affect Highsmith Rainey Hospital. In fact, the
hospital commissioned a study, which was fi led with the
city. However, when Breeden Blackwell of the board
tried to address the council during a public hearing on
April 26, 2010, he was only given the requisite three
minutes to speak, despite the fact that many in the room
tried to cede their time to him.
Smith has visited other multi-modal centers within
the state, including those in Greensboro, Durham
and Raleigh. The Greensboro site he found void of
retail occupants. The Durham site had a heavy police
presence — designed to keep vagrants away and to
protect many of the older clients of the bus service.
Both Pfendler and Smith point to the failed Festival
Park Plaza as a reason why the city should not
appropriate land for private retail/business space, with
both asking how much money has the city lost in that
failed venture.
Pfendler has engaged the services of Fayetteville
attorney Neil Yarborough to help her in her fi ght, but
notes that she doesn’t think there is a lot he can do since
the state recently awarded the city an $8 million grant to
move forward with the project.
“I don’t think it’s right that the city takes away a
profi table, functioning business to give it to someone
else,” she said.
For many years, she would have been on the winning
side, but with the 2004 decision in Kelo V. City of New
London, the U.S. Supreme Court set a precedent for
property to be transferred to a private owner for the
purpose of economic development. The court found
that if an economic project creates new jobs, increases
tax and other city revenues, and revitalizes a depressed
or blighted urban area it qualifi es as public use. This
expands on a prior decision in Berman v. Parker
(1954) which argued that the problems of large-scale
urban blight need to be addressed with large-scale
redevelopment plans and that land can be confi scated,
and transferred to a private entity for a clearly defi ned
public use.
The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
forbids the confi scation of property “without just
compensation,” so that anyone whose property is
acquired does receive some compensation. However,
as is the case with Pfendler, many are
offered compensation packages that
are inadequate.
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