A little bit of real danger from dilapidation just adds to the experience though.

Edit:

>Now city council will decide if the city can begin the eminent domain process to acquire the building to fix the main street bridge and move forward with the Renew Jordan Creek Project.

>The Main Street Bridge is deteriorating. Large buses, emergency vehicles, and trucks can’t drive over it. City leaders say the bridge can’t be repaired until the building is removed.

Ah, it's more than just the building itself.

The Renew Jordan Creek plans look pretty cool. If they pull it off how they say they will, it'll make downtown Springfield look amazing.

Eminent Domain is trash...

Pay that man his money... /Malkovich

All public interest should grind to a halt if a stubborn owner refuses to sell?

Problem is, it gets abused horribly, just like Civil Asset Forfeiture.

So is the sentiment here "it sucks but it's necessary" or "it sucks and should not exist"?

Cause I might be willing to agree with the former, but not the latter.

There are a hell of a lot of things that are terrible but it's good it can be done when needed.

Also I agree whole heartedly about asset forfeiture. I very rarely hear of cases of imminent domain where it seems clear to me there wasn't' a genuine public interest and I am left feeling like the process was abused. Not never mind you, just not often that I can think of.

Eminent Domain definitely has a hell of a lot more reason to exist than Civil Asset Forfeiture, for sure.

My main complaints, personally, are stem from using Eminent Domain to screw the people being bought-out out of the value of their property. Stuff like paying the value of the undeveloped land, not the actual sale price of the property if they listed it.

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As I understand it, the Eminent Domain process has to involve a neutral third party who assesses the fair market value of the property.

I assume you're referring to a case where there were buildings (etc.) and the owner did not receive the value of them? That does seem unfair on the face of it.

The bridge needs to be longer to make the creek channel wider for flood control, and wider as well (if I understand the plans correctly). The HoT is right up to the sidewalk and any widening would necessarily run into it. Not only that, but the wider channel would also go...right through the building. Flooding has been a problem down there for decades and this is the way to alleviate it. There are other properties that can't be used/redeveloped because of flooding.

Exactly. Paying someone out for a home on an acre of land as if it were an acre of empty fields, rather than what a realtor could get for the property, is a scam I've seen several times. That "neutral" third party is often anything but.

This is a classic case of a public infrastructure improvement that can't be done otherwise.

Now, if the city acquired a bunch of land by ED then leased it to someone else to build a casino, THAT would be trashy. But we'd never do that in MO. <coughcoughboonvillecough>

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People down-voting this would be saying the same thing if it was their property being seized.

Its because its a eyesore and its close to the new greenway project.

Mostly yes... To think think that you could work your ass off to buy and build a life or a home or a business and pay taxes all along the way then 30 years later a committee decides to forcibly take it from under the guise of paying you "fair market rates" for their "greater good" is f*cking trash.

That's like buying a stock you want to hold forever because you believe it will continue to appreciate and pay dividends and when there's no outstanding shares left then someone comes along and says "nah" we're forcing you to sell your stock to this us at the current rate whether you like it or not cause we really want the future gains.

No.

It’s a Hotel. Of Terror. What should it look like?

Coming in October, Closed Down Sears of Terror!

Absolutely... but the people who are for it tend to be collectivists and don't hold individual rights on the same pedestal as the "collective need" of the day, until it steps on their yard.

Many of these same types of people were up in arms about the VOTE that happened on Galloway being rezoned for instance but are somehow okay with the government saying "Bend over, this is gonna happen" when it's a gross haunted house that isn't their backyard.

I'm confident they will, just expect it to take longer. Same thing happened with Jordan Valley, this is more or less a continuation of that.

It'll happen, it'll be great, but it'll take 20 years.

Not a perfect analogy. Sometimes eminent domain is necessary. Such as ... say a highway or an interstate.

Today it only takes 4 hours to get down to little rock, or 1 hour to get down to Branson. I'm old enough that I remember a time that wasn't the case. I've to old timers and it was a several hours journey to get to Branson or table rock lake, and Little Rock took 8+ hours.

If you didn't have eminent domain, one landowner could completely stall a highway.

In this articles case, they want to improve the bridge and make the area more usable. They can't because of this building.

When they say the Main Street Bridge, what are they talking about? I don’t see a bridge anywhere near the Hotel of Terror.

Hotel of Terror and Dungeons of Doom have been staples for so many years. If they tear it down, I hope they find a new home. Personally, I would love a fresh new haunted house.

They have all that money to buy the baseball stadium but can’t come up with enough to pay the man?

Load Google Streetview for the Hotel of Terror. You see that fencing next to the south side of the building.

There is a small bridge that goes over Jordan Creek just south of the Hotel.

THAT?! Jeez. I’m no civil engineer but it seems like there might be a better alternative to condemning a building to fix that bridge.

You're correct that it puts the leverage in the hands of the original Landowner and that's the point... that's how I think it should be. And in the long term it would, I believe, sort itself out without heavy handed government strong arming.

It's likely obvious to me, you and everyone with a mind that there are profound community benefits to being able to make that commute... and because of that the original owner should be able to hold out for the highest value possible until another alternative becomes more economically viable.

The idea that at any given time your families 3rd generation farm could be split up for a highway and you get paid out by a less than honest brokers appraisal with little to no recourse is asinine to me and akin to a serfdom dystopia.

The only middle ground I could maybe concede on this on a principled level is if somehow your private property was like a national security blindspot... IE your farm in Maine on the border is a strategically important foothold for a bloodthirsty Canadian invasion.

Outside of that wildly extreme scenario I am of the philosophy I owe you and you owe me literally nothing nor either of us have a right to acquire each others respective properties without consent.

I can get on board with a very select few instances of eminent domain. This one seems sus considering they don't seem to be considering the business in their offers. I don't see that business doing well in very many places. Also it seems hard to believe that little bridge cannot be repaired/replaced without requiring removal of the building.

I went right before it closed and it already had a “the apocalypse has already happened” vibe, so it could honestly be a great location…

This is rhetoric. The hotel of terror doesn’t fit in the City’s vision for daylighting/naturalizing the creek. Bear in mind, this project should actually be called “man-made creek” because that’s all it is going to create; ever since the creek was channelized and tunneled, the water table dropped beneath the surface and the creek only appears during storm water floods. But sure, spend millions for making a man made creek.

The City is going to spend +$40 million on this project. Anybody with neighboring property is going to see their property double in value. The project will revolutionize the image of downtown. Hotel of Terror does not fit into that image. The options for municipalities to get rid of unfavorable land uses: pay market value…or claim some street/city improvement and condemn. The latter is the cheaper.

I hope we get 1 more Halloween season with hotel of terror. I’ve never been, but it’s a Springfield staple.

Sheesh.

The plan moving forward is to open the tunnel from hotel of terror east all the way to water street.

The plan moving forward is to open the tunnel from hotel of terror east all the way to water street.

Stick Spirit Halloween in there and its a 2 for 1 deal!