Nicholas Sprayregen, the owner of Tuck-It-Away self storage in Harlem, has been fighting Columbia University since 2004, when Columbia announced that it wanted to expand into the space where four of his self-storage facilities are located. The university at first tried to buy the properties from Sprayregen, but he refused. "Before long, the offer changed," explains Sprayregen. "'If you don't sell, you'll face condemnation.' I looked on that as offensive, coming from an institution as large and powerful as Columbia." Sprayregen tried to swap land with the university instead, offering to trade his Tuck-It-Away buildings on one side of Broadway for some parcels of Columbia's property on the other side of the street. The university did not agree.
Then Columbia tried to annex the property using the power of eminent domain, in which a public entity can force private property owners to sell their property so that the space can be used for the good of the public. Sprayregen decided to fight back. He filed a lawsuit in January 2009, not expecting to win. He lost his case in the Court of Appeals in November. But then the case moved to the Appellate Division of the State Supreme Court in Manhattan, and Sprayregen, who says that Tuck-It-Away has so far spent $2 million in the fight against the Columbia expansion, won. The Court ruled that no public purpose or blight could justify condemning Tuck-It-Away's buildings. But many New York lawyers expect the appeals court ruling, which was very strongly worded, to be overturned. The court called Columbia "a private elite institution" that could not claim a civic purpose for its expansion, and called Columbia's arguments "mere sophistry." Some observers speculate that the case could end up before the United States Supreme Court.
This month, Sprayregen continued the battle at a public hearing in Harlem. Speakers on both sides of the issue attended. Sprayregen has hired Norman Siegel, a former New York Civil Liberties Union executive director, to represent Tuck-It-Away. Siegel called eminent domain reform "the civil rights issue of the 21st century." But Kathryn Wilde, the chief executive for Partnership for New York City, disagreed. "I think it's frightening," she said, "because there are few more important investments in our city's future than that which Columbia is making." Advocates of the Columbia project argued that the Tuck-It-Away properties are vital to Columbia's project, because 16 of the new buildings are intended to be connected underground -- right through the Tuck-It-Away property. "If the basement can't be connected," argued Columbia executive vice president Maxine Griffith, "I don't see how we can proceed."
Whatever the outcome of the current case, it is likely that New York will be revising its eminent domain laws in response. New York City Law Department deputy chief Lisa Bova-Hiatt commented that although the city supports Columbia, it would not be opposed to changing the eminent domain law, if the changes were "thoughtful." State Senator Bill Perkins, a Harlem Democrat whose district includes the Tuck-It-Away buildings, was one of the hearing's strongest advocates for changing the current eminent domain law. "Eminent domain is like a gun to people's heads," he argued.