Landowner fights over price state wants to pay

WASILLA — A north-south Valley corridor is getting a major upgrade, but at least one neighbor is asking at what cost.

Almost 10,000 cars drive the stretch of the Seward Meridian Parkway between the Palmer-Wasilla and Parks highways each day, said Cynthia Ferguson, the project manager for the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities. This number is predicted to balloon to 27,000 by 2028.

DOT/PF started working on the environmental documents for expanding this stretch of two-lane road in 2003, and Ferguson said the design is about 75 percent complete. Construction should begin in spring 2011 and should be finished in one season.

The completed project will expand the road to two lanes in each direction plus a center turn lane running the length. A separated paved pathway will be built for pedestrians and bicyclists, Ferguson said.

The money to complete the project is coming largely from the Federal Highway Administration, Ferguson said. The estimated construction cost is $13 million. Relocating the utilities will be another $1.6 million, and purchasing the necessary rights-of-way will run somewhere around $15.2 million.

If Kerry McManus has his way, that last figure should be adjusted up by about $85,000.

McManus said he owns three lots on the corner of Seward Meridian Parkway and Spruce Drive, one of which has 500 feet of frontage on the thoroughfare. About four years ago, the state informed him they needed more than an acre of his land necessary for the expansion project.

McManus said he never wanted to sell the land to the state because he had plans to develop it into commercial properties. However, he knew he couldn’t do anything to stop the state from using eminent domain. The remaining land on the frontage lot would have been too small to be of any value, so McManus had two of his three lots subdivided together.

“I let them know my lot is commercial property. There are no convents, and it has high commercial value,” McManus said.

Despite his insistence, the state did its first appraisal with a residential appraisal and returned an offer of about $80,000, McManus said.

Insulted by that price, McManus hired a local commercial appraiser. His appraiser came back with a figure of $200,000.

McManus said he took that figure to the state, and the state agreed to do another appraisal, this time with a commercial appraiser from Anchorage. This appraisal came back at $115,600, and this was the final price the state offered McManus.

He said he refused this second offer, and the state issued a notice of eminent domain last week.

Linda Hummel, a right-of-way agent for DOT/PF, said appraisals are always done with independent appraisers hired by the state. The offers are reviewed by the state’s appraiser in Juneau for fairness.

If a property owner feels something was missed in the appraisal, her office is always willing to take the evidence into consideration, Hummel said. Property owners are certainly allowed to get their own appraisals, and she will look at the results. However, the private appraisals must follow certain federal guidelines in determining the value to be considered.

“Just because they get an appraisal, that does not mean we will accept that appraisal,” Hummel said.

If property owners still do not agree with the final offer, Hummel said they can always bring the case to court.

“I’m going to the jury,” McManus said. “I will accept whatever their decision is, but I want people like you and me to decide what’s fair.”

Regardless of the outcome of this one case, project manager Ferguson said the design of the second phase of the project taking Seward Meridian Parkway all the way to Seldon Road will begin next fall.

Contact Todd L. Disher at todd.disher@frontiersman.com or 352-2252.