Landowners in Stadium's Path Fight to Stay Put
Feb. 7 Move-Out Date Pending in D.C. Court

By David Nakamura
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 2, 2006

The moving truck arrived at the yellow-brick art studio and restoration center at sunrise on a recent chilly morning.

Reinaldo Lopez drove a yellow forklift back and forth from inside the building, hauling heavy crates stacked with supplies and equipment, and loading them onto the truck. His wife, Patricia Ghiglino, stood outside in the cool air and flipped through the pages of "The Prince" by Machiavelli.

"Above all he must abstain from taking the property of others, for men forget more easily the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony," Ghiglino read aloud.

The words have special meaning for Ghiglino and Lopez. For 16 years, the couple have owned and worked out of this building at 1338 Half Street, a block east of South Capitol Street in the Navy Yard section of Southeast Washington, a stone's throw from the Anacostia River's west bank.

But within weeks, they'll probably be gone, forced out against their will. A new baseball stadium is coming to this part of town, and the District government has ordered about two dozen property owners to make way.

"This shows we have such little control over our lives," Ghiglino said. "You can make plans and project your life, but events happen that disrupt your life. The difficult thing is to accept and acknowledge that you do not have total control."

Even as the D.C. Council continues to argue over the stadium's political merits, other parts of the city government are moving forward with the property acquisition. The city seized the titles to the land last fall. Unless the stadium deal gets bogged down in arbitration between the city and Major League Baseball, the property owners will probably all be moved out by the end of March.

Two weeks ago, the District government filed a Superior Court motion that, if affirmed by Judge Joan Zeldon, could force out the property owners, who collectively own about 14 acres, by Tuesday. The site comprises large industrial businesses, including a trash transfer station and an asphalt plant; smaller businesses, including car repair shops and adult entertainment clubs; and a few residential properties. While there have been some hints that the city may give the owners more time, anywhere from a few days for some to a couple months for the large businesses, the clock is ticking.

Most property owners are not leaving without a struggle. About two-thirds, including Ghiglino and Lopez, are fighting in court to retain control of their property or to win more money from the government.

Although the fight over money could take months, even years, to resolve, most land-use experts said they expect the judge to reject property owners' claims that the government's seizure of the land is unconstitutional or otherwise illegal. The stadium could be built even while the fight over money continues.

"There is one of two things I can do," said Joe Lukaesko, who has owned a car repair shop at 1318 Half Street SE since 1970. "If I do not find a new place by the drop-dead date, I'll have to store everything and keep looking. Then, if I do not find a place within a month or two or three, then I'll just go to Acapulco."

Lukaesko was half-joking. But his uncertainty was shared by others. M. Roy Goldberg, an attorney who represents the trash-transfer station, said his clients have not found another location in the city. Owners of a bus parking lot that has been leased to Metro have fought unsuccessfully in court to keep their property. The asphalt plant might be relocated to a site at D.C. Village in Southwest, but that move could cost more than $1 million and could take a couple of months. The city is offering some relocation payments, but the amounts are under negotiation.

But the specter of moving may weigh most personally on the people like Ghiglino and Lopez, and Ken Wyban, who owns and lives in a house at 21 N St SE -- people whose emotions, not just livelihoods, are attached to their properties.

* * *

Wyban, a retired Army sergeant major, was stationed at Fort McNair in the late 1990s, when he first saw the five-bedroom, red-brick detached house while jogging. He bought it in 1998 for $161,000 and planned to retire there, and started renovating the basement to use as a bed-and-breakfast.

Now, the city is offering him $1.2 million, but he's not satisfied. The property all around the city has soared in value, and comparable plots across the street are going for much more, according to several developers. Wyban has decided to try to use his profits to buy property in Florida and Ohio, where his parents live, but he's still sad to have to go.

"I see all the development here and thought I'd be right in the middle of it," Wyban said on a recent day, sitting in his kitchen, sipping tea warmed on an industrial Vulcan stove. "I never thought I'd get knocked out of it."

He is nonplussed by city officials who say that they have offered him a fair deal and that he'll make a huge profit on his property.

"This is a once-in-a-lifetime payoff. I'm going to make a million dollars," Wyban said. "But can you imagine if I held on to this house for five more years? Condos in this city are going for a million. It's incomprehensible."

Wyban stopped his home renovation after Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) announced in September 2004 that a stadium would be built at the site. "My life kind of came to a screeching halt," he said.

His dining room has been set up as a "war room," his long dining table stacked with documents related to the stadium, anti-stadium fliers and posters, and business cards from the many reporters who have visited him.

Last fall, he got a visit from people he was surprised to see: descendants of the man who built his house in the 1840s, a brick-maker named Alfred Richards. Ted Olmstead and his family called on Wyban after hearing of the stadium debate in the news. They told Wyban they lived in Maryland but empathized with his fight to keep the house from being demolished -- Wyban had called on the city to incorporate the house into the stadium design.

Then they handed Wyban a bunch of pictures of Richards and of his descendants at the house. He gave them one of the original bricks Richards had made.

"I feel relief that it's just about over," Wyban said. Movers were expected within a week. He's found a rental apartment in Florida near his mother and will move on, although his lawyer is still fighting the city for more money.

"I've switched gears," Wyban said. "Now I see this as something that just may have been meant to be."

He stepped out to the front of his house, where he has a clear view of the U.S. Capitol dome.

"I'm definitely going to miss this view, though," he said wistfully.

* * *

Ghiglino and Lopez bought their building in 1990 -- for $300,000.

Ghiglino says she came to the United States from her native Peru in 1977 when she was 27. First, she worked at the Spanish embassy. Then she took a job with the National Institute of Mental Health.

It wasn't until she married Lopez, who worked in the art restoration business, that Ghiglino turned her attention to the arts.

They worked out of a building doing restoration in Shady Side, but needed more space. So they found the building near South Capitol Street. It was vacant, with no working electricity or plumbing.

"We had to do it all," Ghiglino said. "The first day, I remember running across the street to borrow the bathroom from neighbors" at a car shop.

The former headquarters of an ice cream company, the building had morphed many times -- into a sign shop, a carpet store and an auto repair company.

The couple brought in huge 16,000-pound steel presses, electrical panels, kilns. Lopez worked on projects all over the city. He most famously restored the lions on Taft Bridge along Connecticut Avenue NW.

They also did blacksmithing, flamework, bead-making, glass-blowing, mosaics, stained glass, stone-carving and bronze-casting. Three years ago, Ghiglino started offering adult classes out of the building. They painted the bricks yellow and added a sign announcing the Washington Sculpture Center.

Their offices were on the second floor, with a view of the Anacostia. Ghiglino stood there on a recent day, staring out, remembering aloud how birds would crowd on the narrow windowsill.

She recalled the Metrobus drivers waving to her, the transvestite pride parade and the time in the early 1990s when a two-story mountain of trash piled up at the transfer station in the next block -- a mountain that the city government ignored for a month until Ghiglino and the other neighbors complained loudly enough.

This was a place the city had long ignored but was now suddenly eager to own.

"This isn't all about money," Ghiglino said. The city has offered her $1.7 million, but she and Lopez have not agreed to sell. "It's very hard when you build something and dream about building it and you build it slowly. You never think it will be taken away."

For now, the supplies and equipment will be placed in storage while she and Lopez work temporarily out of their suburban Maryland home. They're not sure what is coming next, but they've been in this uncertain place before. Tears well in Ghiglino's eyes, but she dries them quickly.

"You laugh and cry and remember certain little anecdotes. Part of me will stay with this building," she said. "Now that you know that it's really happening, you need to step out and relax and look to the future."