Eminent domain panel values Flight 93 crash site at $1.5 million
The Somerset County site where United Flight 93 crashed on Sept. 11, 2001, is worth more than open farmland but not as much as its former owner claims, a three-person commission decided in a report filed on Monday.
The commission calculated that someone on the open market would have been willing to pay the owner about $1,535,000 for the property.
The government took the site through eminent domain in 2009, paying then-owner Michael Svonavec $610,000 for the 275 acres near Shanksville where a hijacked commercial airliner crashed after passengers and crew struggled with terrorists.
Vincent J. Barbera, one of Svonavec's lawyers, released a statement Tuesday saying that they are reviewing the commission's decision.
“The Svonavecs wish the National Park Service well in its efforts now as the steward of this historic and sacred ground,” the statement said. “The Svonavecs are happy with the progress being made in the development of the national memorial and look forward to its completion.”
Svonavec said the site's value was closer to $23.3 million.
Since the government bought the land, the Parks Service spent $28.5 million on memorials, access roads, restrooms, parking lots and other amenities and hired a contractor to build a $20 million visitors center.
Attendance at the site last year was 318,000, according to testimony in a trial in October on Svonavec's lawsuit challenging how much the government paid him.
U.S. District Judge Donetta Ambrose appointed a three-person commission to determine a fair market value of the site at the time the government took it. The commission used an estimate that the then minimally developed site would draw about 136,000 people annually who were willing to pay a $3 admission fee.
Considering that revenue, minus development costs and operating expenses, the commission determined someone on the open market would have been willing to pay about $1,535,000.
The sides have 20 days to file objections to the commission's findings before Ambrose enters a final judgment.
Robert G. Dreher, acting assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's Environment and Natural Resources Division, said the government is happy with the commission's findings.
“The United States has strived for a fair outcome in this matter that both awards just compensation for the landowner and that also serves the nation's clear interest in recognizing the extraordinary sacrifices of the victims of Flight 93 and honors their memory,” he said.
Brian Bowling is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. Reach him at 412-325-4301 or bbowling@tribweb.com.
