"Property is a very important right in this country," Williams said, but added that restrictions on the city's ability to use eminent domain "would slow down or stop a lot of economic development."
"You'd have so many holdouts, it would be impossible to get anything done," he said.
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Metro Business: Coverage of Washington area businesses and the local economy.
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Herb Miller, a major retail developer in the city who has submitted a plan to use private financing to pay for the stadium and build big-box stores on land around the stadium, said his team has ordered legal opinions to see whether his plan would be affected by the Kelo case.
"They say that for us, the area around the stadium is blighted and there have been many cases where blighted areas are legitimate condemnation for public purposes," Miller said. Miller said that he is going to try to negotiate with the private owners of 12 acres that run between N and M streets SE to put the big-box retail stores there and that the city would have to use eminent domain only if the owners do not want to sell.
The Supreme Court case could also affect the city's plans for its long-talked-about Skyland Mall project at Alabama Avenue and Good Hope Road SE, where some of the landowners are refusing to sell property that the city wants to turn over to higher-end retailers. The city has long talked about bringing a Target store there but has not signed a deal with the chain.
Officials at the National Capital Revitalization Corp., a quasi-public arm of the city that is leading the efforts to redevelop Skyland, said they are negotiating with property owners in hopes of buying the land and trying to avoid using eminent domain. Landowners at Skyland say they do not want their property taken by eminent domain and given to another private developer.
"The government wants to take my property and give it to another private developer, and I believe that that's not what America stands for," said Larry Hoffman, who owns some small offices there and manages about 50,000 square feet of retail shops for landlords at Skyland. "I don't have a problem if the government wants to take my property and build a highway for the public good. . . . But to simply give it to somebody else to make money, why is he any better than I am?"
Staff writers David Nakamura, Lori Montgomery and Debbi Wilgoren contributed to this story.
