Battle Brewing for Stadium Tracts

"We looked at other locations where there was not as much speculation," he said.

The family of Les Ulanow, which had property inside and outside the stadium site, was able to use the speculation to its advantage.

In the spring, the family sold a 2 1/2 -acre parcel to a developer for $24 million but made the sale conditional on the developer also buying a half-acre plot on the stadium site for $6 million. The city is offering the developer $4.4 million for the same half-acre plot.

Nevertheless, some property owners have argued that recent redevelopment at the Navy Yard and plans for a new Transportation Department office nearby had created high demand for land before the stadium was announced.

"This area did not need government intervention [for a stadium] to make it go," said Joseph Lukaesko, who has owned and operated a car repair shop on the site for more than 30 years. The city has offered him about $1.7 million, and he said he is consulting with attorneys before deciding what to do.

Owners of some of the largest properties, including an asphalt plant, an 89,000-square-foot warehouse, a trash transfer station and a parking lot that has been rented to Metro for buses, have retained attorneys and are poised to fight the city for more money.

Several D.C. Council members, noting that the cost of the stadium land already has soared over previous estimates, said they fear that legal battles could swell the price of the estimated $535 million stadium project.

When Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) announced the arrival of a baseball team and plans for the stadium, his aides estimated land costs at $65 million. The city's chief financial officer, Natwar M. Gandhi, put the estimate at $77 million this spring in a report for the council.

But the offers sent to property owners this month were based on a new assessment conducted by contractors, who put the total value at more than $97 million.

"We'll see what the final negotiated numbers are," said council member David A. Catania (I-At Large), who has been a sharp critic of the stadium's public cost. "We can't stop the stadium, but we'll be watching the expenditures and trying to keep them to a minimum."

As part of the negotiation process, the city has been trying to help property owners relocate. But progress has been slow. Officials are having trouble with zoning restrictions and residential opposition to new locations for the trash transfer station and several adult-oriented businesses, which have expressed concern that they will not be welcome elsewhere.

Ghiglino said the city tried to persuade her to move to Dupont Down Under, a failed project a decade ago in which developers tried to open a food court below Dupont Circle. The site has been boarded up.