Nick Sprayregen

For more than three years, Nicholas Sprayregen has kept his word to Columbia University.

The largest private landowner in the footprint of the university’s planned 17-acre West Harlem expansion, he has vowed time and again to fight the university’s attempts to oust him, so long as the school threatens the use of eminent domain.

Now, as the bulk of the area’s politicians have endorsed the expansion, community opposition has gone from a boil to a simmer and all but one other private-property owner has agreed to sell to the university, the fight’s final chapter is poised to be strictly a legal one between two parties: the university and Mr.  read more »

The major landowner fighting Columbia University's expansion, Nick Sprayregen, today came out victorious over the state's Empire State Development Corporation today in an appellate court ruling on a case involving the Freedom of Information Law.

The case concerned the release of documents and correspondences between the state and its contractor AKRF, mostly surrounding the creation of a blight study (slated for release Thursday).

Mr. Sprayregen, represented by attorney Norman Siegel, defeated the state at the first level last year, with the court offering criticism that the same contractor, AKRF, was used for both the blight study and the environmental review.  read more »

Nick Sprayregen, one of the last property owners resisting Columbia’s expansion into West Harlem, has rarely had nice words to say about the university. But today, following a 50-minute meeting, it sounded like he had found new friends—or, more accurately, potential business partners.

“The subject of the conversation moved to my swap idea, and they were interested in discussing it, which was the whole point of them calling the meeting,” Mr.  read more »

Nick Sprayregen and Columbia University, who have been staring each other down over the ownership of four properties in West Harlem, are going to talk again tomorrow, Mr. Sprayregen said.

It would be the first time in more than three years. At that time, Mr. Sprayregen made it clear he did not want to sell his properties to make way for the university’s expansion as long as Columbia was threatening eminent domain.  read more »