Domain Parking Garage

[Niobe Hennigan]

OnDec. 23, the Appellate Division of the state Supreme Court, Fourth Judicial Department dismissed a lawsuit brought by Brett Truett, Joseph Cerino and the 418 Lafayette St. Corp. challenging the use of eminent domain in the situation.

On Tuesday, Supreme Court Justice Bernadette T. Clark ruled against the group's filing of a stay in eminent domain until the case is possibly heard on appeal, Oneida County Attorney Peter Rayhill said.

In filing the map, Rayhill said the county will write up a signed order, attach the transcript from the recent court ruling and order and submit it to the plaintiffs and the judge, a process he called "reasonably straightforward" and expects will take about a week.

The county will then start scheduling investigations of the properties, looking for nuisances such as asbestos. Demolition of the properties will follow, and construction of the parking garage would begin soon after the county awards the contract.

Oneida County may use eminent domain to take control of properties that lie in the footprint of a proposed parking garage next to The Wynn Hospital, which is under construction in downtown Utica, according to a recent court decision.

The parking garage is planned at Cornelia, Oriskany and Lafayette streets, across Lafayette Street from the Mohawk Valley Health System hospital, which is under construction, to provide parking for the hospital and other downtown visitors.

Oneida County has started eminent domain proceedings against four properties in the proposed garage footprint, including a house owned by Brett Truett at 442 Lafayette Street; 418 Lafayette Street, a property owned by Joseph Cerini and from which he runs his business, Citation Services; 425-527 Oriskany Street, currently the location of an Enterprise Rent-A-Car; and a vacant lot owned by Dennis Corrigan.

Another lawsuit against the county over eminent domain is still pending. It was filed by the 525-527 Oriskany St. LLC, also in the Fourth Division of the Appellate Division of the state Supreme Court. Oral arguments were heard on Oct. 25.

The plaintiffs expect to appeal, Brett Truett said via email when asked for comment. "We will continue to oppose," he said, "the unnecessary demolition of historic buildings and taking of personal property."

In essence, the city, with the help of state and federal money, invests in infrastructure improvements and parking capacity to attract new development, then pays for those investments on the back end with taxes generated from new growth.

In the latest iteration of this approach, Quincy has applied for a $75 million state grant for a parking garage in the southwest corner of its downtown district. The application submitted to MassWorks says the 1,000-car garage would provide needed parking for several future projects in the area. Quincy would kick in $5 million of its own, bringing the total price tag for the garage to about $80 million.

Having completed the Hancock Adams Common, Kilroy Square and other district improvements, the city now turns its attention to an underdeveloped corridor bounded by Granite Street and Hannon Parkway to the north and south, and Hancock Street and Burgin Parkway to the east and west.

MassWorks does not typically hand out grants of this magnitude. In 2022, the MassWorks disbursed a total of $100 for 63 different projects. The largest single grant of $6.5 million went to Haverhill for infrastructure repairs and upgrades in its Urban Renewal District.

Recent development in the area includes Generals Park, which was unveiled Sept. 11, 2021. Located behind the 1500 block of Hancock Street, it features a fountain and bronze statues and busts of seven military generals from Quincy. Generals Bridge, which connects Burgin Parkway to downtown Quincy, was unveiled the same day.

North of IHOP, on the other side of Generals Bridge, massive heaps of earth mark the spot where FoxRock Properties plans to build a large medical office building. Scott Ferson, president of Liberty Square Group (the public relations firm representing FoxRock), said the city is currently using the site as a staging and soil storage area for the new public safety building.

Owned by Rob Hale, billionaire founder of Quincy-based Granite Telecommunications, FoxRock developed Ashlar Park, a 465-unit residential complex on the 15-acre campus of the former Quincy Medical Center.

The first two stories would hold a restaurant with dual lobbies opening onto Hancock Street and McConville Way. Forty-three apartment units are planned for the upper five stories, and an 18-space parking garage would sit below street level, Arcari said.

Quincy acquired the two buildings next door with plans to tear them down and build a park connecting Hancock Street and McConville Way. The park would provide outdoor patio seating for the adjacent restaurant. Those buildings, which hold a doughnut shop and a taekwondo studio, could fall in late summer, Walker said.

Arcari said his construction company, Monarch, will wait until the city demolishes the neighboring buildings before beginning sitework. Though dates remain tentative, Arcari said he expects construction will start in March 2024.

Slater, who has produced more than 34 movies since 2012 and has two more in post-production, signed a land disposition agreement with the city in 2021 to partner in the construction of a 500,000-square-foot, three-level performing arts center at the site of the former Messina Lot at Hancock Street and Hannon Parkway. The city took the lot by eminent domain in 2019 for $6.8 million.

Bloomington wants to buy the property at the south end of the block between 4th and 3rd streets along Walnut, so that the replacement parking structure can have a footprint that extends the length of the block. Owner Juan Carlos Carrasquel does not want to sell. The offer made, before Bloomington started the eminent domain legal proceedings, was $587,500.

In the television drama, Ross had the key insight while he and Litt were enjoying a mud bath. What won the day for Litt and Ross was the idea that the value of the property was actually much higher than previously thought. They argued the value of the property, under some new zoning, was $100 million. That was enough to ward off the proposed taking.

Complimentary self-parking is available on the third floor of the Nordstrom parking garage behind the hotel. Please pick up a parking tag from the valet attendants and hang it in your rearview mirror.

Archer Austin and Direct Transportation Solutions offer a complimentary shuttle within 3 miles of the hotel on a first-come, first-served basis (this does not apply to groups of 10 or more). Please notify the valet attendant if you would like to use this service.

Austin's CapMetro offers rail service to and from downtown. The CapMetro Kramer Station is located 1 mile from Archer Hotel. The train to downtown takes approximately 25 minutes. $3.50 each way or $7 for a day pass.

The proposal calls for acquiring by eminent domain the nearly quarter-acre former auto repair shop, Mayor Susan Knudsen said. It would be combined with an adjacent village-owned parking lot to form a half-acre park.

But Scott Lief, immediate past president of the Chamber of Commerce, said the village "has enough parks" and that the proposed green space, which would be next to Ben & Jerry's, would result in "ice cream garbage."

The two properties that would make up the park held a Mobil Oil Co. filling station and repair shop from about 1933 to 1989, according to a remedial investigation report done in July 2020 by ELM Group for the owner, Ridgewood 120 LLC.

In 1989, the filling station closed and two 3,000-gallon underground gasoline storage tanks were removed. At some point the village acquired the filling station site for a parking lot. The garage property was bought in 1989 by Richard Agnello, who continued repair services until selling the property to Ridgewood 120 in 2006 for $1.3 million. The garage building remains on the site.

The two lots were designated part of the North Walnut Street Redevelopment area in 2007, with the intended use as one of two municipal parking garages. Ultimately, only the Hudson Street Garage was built.

The cost of acquiring the property is not in the eminent domain ordinance. The property is assessed at $978,600. However, Councilwoman Pamela Perron said the cost "will be reduced to reflect the cost of remediation."

"The remaining residual soil impacts do not pose any immediate or significant risk to human or ecological receptors," the report states. "Given the relatively low concentrations and localized extent of gasoline-related contaminants of concern in the soil at the site, there is sufficient data to develop the appropriate soil remediation options."

Domain Tower 2 is centrally located in the Domain District near restaurants, shopping centers, businesses and apartment complexes. The facility is a Class AA office space with mixed used development. The facility offers a covered parking garage with 1 main entrance and exit off of Alterria Street.

Renderings revealed this week for the Terra at Domain Northside tower by acclaimed Austin design studio Michael Hsu Office of Architecture outline the finer points of the plan previously known as Domain Block C by Dallas-based real estate firm and Domain Northside owners Northwood Retail, set to bring roughly 385,000 square feet of office space and a ground-level restaurant to a site currently occupied by a parking garage near the corner of Palm Way and Alterra Parkway. (It appears the project demolishes the parking garage in order to build a larger parking garage as part of the tower.)

So, what does parked domain mean? Domain parking, aka cash parking, is the leveraging of advertisements on a parked web domain to generate revenue while that domain is otherwise inactive. Similar to affiliate advertising, you make money based on how many users land on your site and click the advertisements.

Web hosting, email and every other element of an active site are turned off. The domain simply operates as a crossroads where people can either click on relevant advertorial links (and make the domain owner money) or bounce off the page.

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