by Ken Gimblin

SACRAMENTO–George Speir who represents the U.S. Bank certified co-owners of the vacant Macy’s men’s store building located at the eastern end of the downtown plaza are the only group that is holding out to sell the vancant department store. The last piece of the puzzle that will open the path for construction for the Sacramento Kings to build their new arena.

The City took the owners of the Macy’s building to court and won an eminent domain judgement to purchase the building from owners CalPERS and the certified owners for $4.35 million back on March 15th. The certified owners said the building selling price should be at $10 million and that the certified owners own the building would not get their fair share as the certified owners say the building and property is worth more than double than the $4.35 million that the city and the Kings are paying. CalPERS owns the property land portion and have agreed to sell their share.

A ruling by Sacramento Superior Court Judge Raymond Cadei that the property maybe sold to the city and the Kings for $4.35 million for the benefit of the city while the building is not doing any good sitting empty and CalPERS and the certified owners would lose any business by selling an empty buidling. CalPERS had no problem with selling their share but the certified owners said they’d be shortchanged in the deal. Speir says that the case will now be brought to the 3rd District Court of Appeals even though the city of Sacramento is in control of the property.

While the appeal is pending that further pushes back the time deadline set by the NBA of fall 2017 to have the arena finished, groundbreaking is scheduled for late spring (May). The NBA said that if the arena is not in place and ready to go by fall of 2017 the team will be forced to leave Sacramento and will be moved to another city.

Speir wrote on court documents that the certified owners rights are being violated and that Cadei’s ruling was a rush to judgement and that the certified owners case needs to be heard out, “the city’s needs are not grounds for taking shortcuts and ignoring the (owners) property rights.”

Assistant City manager John Dangberg said the timeline is a major factor in play now that the certified owners have filed an appeal “failure to achieve possession of the property by April 2014 will put the arena project at significant risk (and development) would come to a halt” said Dangberg.

Further the certified owners say the lawsuit filed by the city for eminent domain only covered the land and property which CalPERS owns and not the building which the certified owners own. The city and the Kings are basically $5 million apart from the $4.35 million purchase price of the vacant building which the certified owners will most likely be asking for. The Kings who have purchased most of the downtown plaza at $36 million or more than 96 percent of the mall property, may have to haggle these last $5 million with the certified owners in the court of appeals.

Ken Gimblin is covering the Sacramento Kings and Golden State Warriors arena developments for Sportstalk radio