By Leslie Albrecht and Yepoka Yeebo
DNAinfo Reporter/Producers
MORNINGSIDE HEIGHTS — Columbia University's bid to expand its campus uptown got the green light Thursday from New York State's Court of Appeals.
The court upheld a decision that allows a state redevelopment agency to use eminent domain to seize 17 acres of "blighted" property in West Harlem to make way for the university's satellite campus.
In a statement, Columbia president Lee Bollinger said he was "gratified" by the court's unanimous decision, adding that the project will revitalize Manhattanville and create thousands of jobs.
People on the streets West Harlem Thursday afternoon didn't share Bollinger's joy.
"I think they're bloodsuckers," said a man who did not want to be identified who works at a 125th Street business in the path of the university's expansion. "They're putting hundreds of people out of jobs. Just look at this stretch of Broadway," he said, gesturing. "All those businesses, gone."
One man who challenged the expansion plan says he's not done fighting.
Nick Sprayregen, who owns Tuck-It-Away, Inc. storage warehouses in the path of the expansion project, told The New York Observer he plans to appeal the ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals. Sprayregen did not immediately return a call for comment.
Sprayregen and other West Harlem property owners sued Empire State Development Corporation, the redevelopment agency that will lead the expansion, claiming that the agency was in cohoots with Columbia and that many of the buildings weren't considered blighted until Columbia bought them.
Robert MacNamara, a staff attorney with the Virginia-based Institute for Justice, which filed a friend of the court brief on the case, called the ruling a reminder of "what we already know, that the process for judicial review of eminent domain is fundamentally broken."
The government can only use eminent domain to take over property that's deemed blighted.
Last year the the Appellate Division of the State Supreme Court ruled in favor of property owners who had refused to sell to the university saying the state's use of eminent domain was unconstitutional.
The court said then that Columbia and Empire State Development Corporation colluded to engineer a study that would show blight existed in the neighborhood.
In Thursday's ruling, the State Court of Appeals agreed with Empire State Development Corporation's assessment that the area is blighted and that the expansion project presents a clear public benefit.
"Indeed, the advancement of higher education is the quintessential example of a civic purpose," the court said. "It is fundamental that education and the expansion of knowledge are pivotal government interests."
In 2002, Columbia began buying property in West Harlem for the expansion plan, which includes laboratories, classroom buildings and community spaces such as restaurants and music clubs.
The plan covers 17 acres spanning from 125th Street to 133rd Street and from Broadway to Twelfth Avenue. Columbia now owns or controls roughly 91 percent of the expansion area.
The expansion will include major infrastructure improvements, including to the 125th Street subway station.
