Longmont files eminent-domain request on Dillard’s

LONGMONT – A plan for city officials in Longmont to take title of a Dillard’s department store for a court-set price and demolish it could be heard by a district court judge on Thursday, June 6, now that a legal process has started.

Elected city council members, acting as the Longmont Urban Renewal Authority, filed eminent domain documents in Boulder County District Court against Dillard’s Properties LLC and DSS Uniter Inc., another property owner, on Friday, May 17. In one of the documents, the urban renewal authority asked the court to set a hearing not less than 20 days later to decide when it could take title to the property.

That document also asks that a judge decide that the city be granted title to the property “as soon as possible.” A district court spokesperson was not immediately available to comment on when the documents might be heard.

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Eminent domain is the term used to describe a government’s legal right to take private property for public use after compensating a property owner. The urban renewal authority previously offered Dillard’s $3.6 million for the store and the land.

Dillard’s spokeswoman Julie Bull on Monday, May 20, said the company had no comment about the eminent domain legal action. The eminent domain proceedings come after more than a year of negotiations about the building and land between NewMark Merrill Mountain States, which plans an $80 million redevelopment of the current Twin Peaks Mall, and Dillard’s representatives. The development has been renamed Village at the Peaks and is slated to open for the holiday season in 2014.

Dillard’s holds legal veto power over any redevelopment of the property. Longmont’s special counsel in the matter, Robert Duncan, was not immediately available for comment about the eminent domain action, including the timing.

The 94,000-square-foot building and land was valued at $3.03 million in a city appraisal conducted in November. A Boulder County Assessor’s Office appraisal assessed the property at $2.935 million for a two-year period ending in June 2012.

The court also must set a price for the building and the land, according to the documents. No time frame is laid out in the documents for the compensation amount. A Dillard’s representative has said in the past that the company is seeking $5 million for the property, according to Brad Power, Longmont’s economic development director.

A 100,000-square-foot Sam’s Club discount store and a 30,000-square-foot Whole Foods Market (Nasdaq: WFM) grocery store have signed on to anchor the new shopping center, along with a Regal Entertainment Group 12-screen, 2,500-seat movie theater.

NewMark Merrill paid $8.5 million for the existing 550,000-square-foot mall in February 2012. It is slated for demolition this fall.