MORGANTOWN — A local business owner is speaking out against efforts to have his property acquired by the city of Morgantown via eminent domain.
The city, filed a verified petition for condemnation in Monongalia County Circuit Court claiming that acquiring the property on 1125 University Avenue that houses Wings Ole, is necessary to provide adequate access to the newly renovated Hazel Ruby-McQuain Park. For the owner of the property, the move is considered blindsiding after past negotiations with the city.
“It was quiet for a long time, you know we had some work with the city and they made some contact with us, but all of a sudden we thought we had an agreement in principle, and the city started it’s condemnation procedure,” said property owner Dan Nagowski, who also owns Wings Ole.
According to Nagowski, an agreement with The City of Morgantown to use the property was reached back in September 2019. In this agreement, the city was allowed to use about 35 square feet of his property to create access to Hazel Ruby-McQuain park. Instead of using the equivalent of half a parking space, the city began construction on a new building and sidewalks, which takes up approximately 800 square feet mainly used for customer parking. According to Nagowski, the process was slow burning when construction began.
“I leave to go hunting out west and I come back in November and they got footers dug, they’ve encroached on my property and then in December they build this eight foot sidewalk and wiped out seven parking spots,” explained Nagowski on WAJR’s Talk of the Town Thursday. “That’s when I got involved,” he said.
In a release given to WAJR, The City of Morgantown stated that communications between the city and Mr. Nagowski have been attempted numerous times since the agreement was made to build on the property. This included several mediation sessions, an appraised offer of approximately $193,800 as well as payment for expenses incurred for eminent domain proceedings. According to Nagowski, the offer was made, but nothing formal in writing was presented even as negotiations over the property continued into 2020.
“You know we talked about it over different numbers, but to be honest with you, I never saw anything from the city,” he said in regards to negotiations. “And the city as they said in the newspaper that I have been unwilling to cooperate with them and I think the city is acting in bad faith,” he said.
In order for The City of Morgantown to complete the process, they must provide evidence to the court that all avenues were taken before eminent domain was called for as well as a burden of proof that they negotiated in good faith while attempting to purchase and then build on the property. For Nagowski, he’s now in a waiting game over a piece of property that has been developed over it’s two decades of ownership and could impact a well known local entity.
“We realized that we needed the parking and it did help increase our business over the years, and then to turn around take that away from us is just unconscionable to be honest with you,” he said.