LYNN — Contractors working for the MBTA drilled into the ground under the viaduct storefronts on Mt. Vernon Street Monday morning, examining the soil with a boring test, a step that the storefronts’ owner Fransisco Meneses and his attorney David L’Esperance consider a strong indication that the agency will actively take the properties through eminent domain.
“As far as I can tell, they’re making all the moves to take it by eminent domain,” L’Esperance said.
The nearly 22 year-long battle between Meneses and the MBTA began in 2001, when Meneses purchased a series of storefronts on Mt. Vernon Street underneath the MBTA’s Lynn Commuter Rail bridge.
Meneses, a fire escape engineer, planned to renovate the storefronts beneath the bridge with the goal of redeveloping central square as a business hub. Due to concrete falling from the bridge, rain water damage leaking through the bridge’s holes into the storefronts, and a variety of structural issues, which Meneses claimed to be the result of the MBTA’s negligence in repairing its bridge, Meneses was not able to secure the permits necessary to open up shop.
In June, city inspectors closed Meneses’ storefronts for safety reasons, and blocked off a portion of the road beneath the bridge because of giant blocks of concrete that had been falling from the bridge.
“If it’s not safe for me to go underneath it [the bridge], how can it be safe for commuters to traverse it,” Meneses said in June.
In September, the MBTA filed a motion for a preliminary injunction against Meneses, which would prohibit him from preventing the MBTA from entering his businesses, storing personal property on the land that the agency says prohibits them from accessing the viaduct and performing any construction work on the viaduct that the agency says would impair its structural integrity.
L’Esperance wrote in response that his client never prevented the MBTA from entering his properties to perform inspections and repairs and is still not preventing them from doing so. L’Esperance also wrote that the MBTA’s own expert has admitted the bridge is structurally sound, essentially invalidating the need for the agency to access the business for safety reasons, and that to whatever degree the bridge is unsafe remains the result of two decades of deferred maintenance on the part of the MBTA.
Discussion of eminent domain hit the table in October, only weeks after Essex Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Dunigan ruled in favor of the MBTA’s injunction hearing. Meneses said that MBTA officials contacted L’Esperance seeking acquisition of the viaduct properties through eminent domain. He claimed that the agency sought to cover up the bridge’s maintenance issues by acquiring the properties underneath, and said that he was willing to file suit against the MBTA if the agency pursued eminent domain acquisition of his properties.
“Now, the MBTA wants to do eminent domain, because it is my belief that they are not going to fix this bridge. But if they get me out of there, I’m the only one complaining about this bridge,” Meneses said in October. “They’re going to force me to sell the property to them, so now I have to initiate a lawsuit that says ‘[…] fix the bridge and let me keep my property.’”
L’Esperance said Monday that although he has yet to receive formal notification that the MBTA plans to acquire the properties, the agency is currently going through the motions necessary for a government agency to acquire properties through eminent domain.
“It’s not in the books, they haven’t given formal notice that they’ll take it for eminent domain, but these are some of the things they have to do before they take it by eminent domain,” L’Esperance said.
L’Esperance said that should the MBTA try to take the storefronts by eminent domain, the next step would be to send an appraiser to set the storefronts’ value. Should the MBTA appraise the properties at a value that Meneses and L’Esperance do not consider to be accurate, the conflict would continue, once again, in court.
“The next part of this, if they are going to take it by eminent domain, would be when they send an appraiser and they put a number on what they think the property is valued at. We then negotiate with them over that price, and if it’s not that value, if it’s not agreeable, the MBTA can take it anyways for their number, and then we’d have to file suit,” L’Esperance said.
He added that his client suffered the loss of his businesses due to the MBTA’s lack of maintenance on their structures.
“There’s other damages here that the MBTA has caused to the Meneses family. He hasn’t been allowed to open his office there for the fire escape company; He hasn’t been able to lease or rent the other storefronts, that are his,” L’Esperance said.
Since the injunction hearing in September, an MBTA inspection found that its bridge was safe for people to be under. L’Esperance said that while he and Meneses await further steps in the agency’s eminent domain process, they plan on working with the city to use that inspection as a way to obtain licenses and open Meneses’ businesses.
“Apparently the preliminary inspections by the MBTA show that it’s safe to travel underneath the bridge. And the bridge or the viaduct itself is safe for right now, so my client would like to push forward with his plans of opening up retail and office space there,” L’Esperance said.
Meneses, in a written statement, wrote that while the MBTA will compensate him for his properties, he will have to fight them in court to restore his dream of bringing his businesses back to central square.
“I will be compensated for my 32,000 square feet of land but will have to sue for all my hopes and dreams to be compensated over many years through legal means. I have started a lawsuit against MBTA as of 30 plus days ago before receiving this eminent domain letter,” Meneses wrote. “I wish to prove the MBTA has wronged me and the citizens of Lynn as well as many other cities and citizens with intentional negligence that now requires billions of dollars to restore our infrastructure under federal watch.”
