GAINESVILLE – Clermont resident Rick Gailey doesn’t like the fact that he is being forced to sell an investment property he purchased in Gainesville nearly two decades ago, and says he plans to fight city hall as long as he can.
Gailey says he is very motivated because he feels he was victimized by the City of Gainesville once already, and that he isn’t going to sit by quietly and allow it to happen to him again.
Gailey said the city offered to purchase his property but the offer was unacceptable. “The city come and offered me $250,000. I gave $500,000 twenty years ago…just paid it off two months ago…and I said, ‘Y’all are crazy. I don’t want to sell it!’”
Gailey is referring to Pepper’s Market, the pink-sided store front at 628 E.E. Butler Parkway, as well as the stand-alone building at the rear of the store’s parking lot. “Mr. Peppers owned the property and the store for years,” Gailey said when interviewed on Tuesday, “and I bought it from him twenty years ago and I leased it to tenants.”
Gailey said he then made the city a counter-offer: “I said I’ll take $1.2-million for it.”
He said he knows his counter-offer is a bit high but now that Walton Summit is operational next door he sees an enhanced business opportunity created by the growing number of residents in the multi-level income community.
“I want the opportunity to develop my property. I have a tenant with a signed lease…waiting on me to do a remodel,” Gailey said. “It’s a signed ten year lease. My future plan is to tear that back building down and to add on to the one in the front.”
Gainesville City Manager Bryan Lackey said during a telephone interview Wednesday afternoon that negotiations with Gailey have been ongoing but was unable to disclose if the city’s offer or Gailey’s counter-offer have changed.
Gailey points out that his determined opposition to the city’s plan to exercise the Power of Eminent Domain and force him to sell his property is actually rooted in something that happened several years ago.
He says the main entrance to his property for over fifty years had been from Atlanta Street, not E.E. Butler Parkway. He said when demolition began on the Green Hunter housing project in 2017 to make way for the construction of Walton Summit, Atlanta Street was condemned by the city and deeded to the Housing Authority as part of the new development.
“The city, they closed that road without following the law,” Gailey contends. “The law is (that) they are supposed to notify me. They closed the road and deeded it to the Housing Authority and never sent me anything.”
“I lost my entrance,” Gailey emphasized, explaining that his remaining access point, which is onto highly-travelled E.E. Butler Parkway, is too narrow and too dangerous for vehicles to use safely.
Gailey said he contacted the city in early 2018 once it became apparent Atlanta Street was not going to be restored following its demolition. “I contacted Bryan Lackey and he met me out there…and I said, ‘What are we going to do about my entrance? I need my entrance back in.’”
Gailey said Lackey told him he understood the problem and would work to find a solution. Gailey said after several months passed and no acceptable solution was offered to him he threatened to sue the city for reverse condemnation of the roadway.
According to Lackey that suit was filed in September, 2019.
“Now I get this notice that they’re going to do Eminent Domain on it,” Gailey said. “I think this is basically abuse of power by the city. If they were going to file Eminent Domain on my property they should have done it when the apartment complex was getting torn down.”
Gailey says he will not stop his fight if the Gainesville City Council votes to exercise Eminent Domain on his property, something now scheduled for April 21st. “I’m going to take it to a judge, and I’m going to take it to the highest court I can take it to.”
Lackey said during the telephone interview that the city plans to continue its effort to obtain the property using Eminent Domain. “The city council does plan to follow through with that this coming Tuesday night.”
Lackey said Gailey’s law suit against the city was the genesis of that plan. “After he did that the city council just decided to make the determination that since a law suit had already been filed that we would just in turn go ahead and condemn this property. The city council’s feeling is it’s in the best interest of the city since this is a part of the midtown redevelopment plan.”
“We’re going to finalize this lengthy process that we started many months ago,” Lackey said.
An open meeting is planned for April 21st at the Public Safety Complex on Queen City Parkway, Lackey said, but strict adherence to social distancing will be enforced.
He said the meeting will also be available live on the city’s Facebook page, recommending that as the safest way to attend the meeting.
Lackey added, “For state law, when you consider a measure like this - considering Eminent Domain - the meeting has to start after 6 o’clock, so therefore we’ve chosen 6:15.”
