On Tuesday, the Empire State Development Corporation held its first public hearing on its outline for Columbia's 17-acre expansion into West Harlem.

One of the first speakers was the daughter, a senior in high school, of the Singh family, owner of a gas station at 129th Street. The gas station is one of two hold-out properties still at odds with Columbia; Nick Sprayregen's storage company is the other.

"If Columbia has to take [our property] away using eminent domain, I am sad to say, our future is looking very grim," the Singh daughter told the audience at City College.  read more »

Nick Sprayregen, the landowner leading the final hold-out against Columbia's 17-acre West Harlem expansion, has an op-ed in today's Wall Street Journal. In it, Mr. Sprayregen (profiled by The Observer in July) attacks Columbia's threatened use of eminent domain to take his storage company's property.

In the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the government is permitted to take private property only for "public use."

This clause was once limited to true public projects such as the construction of highways, fire houses and public libraries. But over the last 50 years it has been bastardized by the powerful (in collusion with compliant politicians and the acquiescence of the courts) into a weapon used routinely to forcibly take other people's property for nonpublic uses. What is occurring in West Harlem today is a prime example of this abuse.

Nick Sprayregen, the owner of Tuck-It-Away Self Storage, has become one of the biggest names, and deepest pockets, among opponents of Columbia University’s expansion plan for West Harlem.

So what’s he doing making a peace offering? And why is he doing it through the press?

Mr. Sprayregen is proposing that he give up three of his buildings that are right smack-dab in the center of the 17-acre area where the Ivy League school wants to create a third campus. In exchange, he wants the university to give him two pieces of land that it already owns on the eastern edge of the site.

Errol Louis mentioned the idea in passing in the Daily News last week. On Monday, Mr. Sprayregen told us a bit more:  read more »

The West Harlem community board voted firmly against Columbia University’s expansion, 31-2, Monday night, which, while purely advisory, is going to put a lot of pressure on the school to make at least some changes to its plan.

But it was not a through-and-through rejection: The resolution listed 10 conditions under which the board would have supported the plan to turn 17 acres just north of 125th Street and west of Broadway into new classroom and laboratory space.  read more »

Columbia University’s shopping spree for Manhattanville properties continues.

The university recently closed on buildings at 640 West 132nd Street and 2311 12th Avenue for $8 million, according to city records. A representative from Columbia told The Observer that both properties have been under contract for a few years, and are currently used primarily by Verizon Communications.  read more »

Columbia University’s press office kindly sent us (unsolicited) a PDF of a mailer sent out to 50,000 area residents “to help inform and educate them about Columbia's proposed Manhattanville expansion project.” Another “liar flyer” a la Atlantic Yards?

Well, like Forest City Ratner, Columbia is also using the mailer to help build a citizens’ army of supporters for the project, this time via a reply card that permits residents to volunteer “to speak in support of the project at public hearings.”

Unlike Forest City, however, which deftly avoided showing any images of skyscrapers, Columbia’s propaganda actually gives a glimpse (if only a glimpse) of what the project will look like.  read more »

Much has been made about the potential gentrifying effect Columbia University’s proposed expansion will have on Harlem. The draft environmental impact statement (PDF), which came out earlier this summer, does not disappoint. With the self-effacing accuracy for which these EIS’s are known, “approximately 3,293” residents of the surrounding area are vulnerable to “indirect displacement” due to “upward rent pressure” (p. S-31).

It is a big enough blip that the report’s authors, AKRF (which The Observer profiled this week), calls indirect displacement a “significant and adverse impact” that would be only partially mitigated by steps that the university is contemplating, such as developing affordable housing in the community board district or creating a graduate student residence on Columbia-owned land nearby.

And AKRF is being paid by Columbia--and by the Empire State Development Corporation (though that's another story).  read more »

A fellow member of the community organization that is negotiating with Columbia University has proposed ousting Nick Sprayregen, a vehement opponent of the Manhattanville expansion, from its board.

Susan Russell, the chief of staff for City Council Member Robert Jackson of Harlem, made a motion last week to discuss removing Mr. Sprayregen from the West Harlem Local Development Corporation because she said that he has a conflict of interest.  read more »

Columbia University is officially on a buying spree for Manhattanville property.

City records shows that the university closed today on two more properties, both on 131st Street, for approximately $18.6 million total. The two addresses--615 West 131st Street and 633 West 131st Street--sit on a block that may soon be owned entirely by Columbia. Calls to the university for comment were not immediately returned.  read more »

Perhaps one more step toward Manhattanville expansion was taken in recent days when Columbia University finalized the purchase of a vacant building at 3270 Broadway. The sale closed for $10.4 million, according to city records.

The building, which sits between 131st and 132nd Streets, is a former U-Haul facility with serious structural problems, according to a Columbia spokesperson. The property has been under contract with Columbia since May 2005.  read more »