John Weissler bought his one-fifth of an acre parcel of land at San Pedro Avenue and Odell Street about a decade ago.
From a 5,300-square-foot office building there, Weissler operates a property appraisal business and his sister leases space for her acupuncture practice.
Late last year, VIA Metropolitan Transit sent the property owner a letter stating it needed to take the 10 feet of his property fronting San Pedro for a temporary construction easement, and named a price.
But, “the offer that they gave me, I thought, was unacceptable,” Weissler said. He wants “substantially more.”
The entire property was last appraised at $475,000, according to county tax records.
In April, Weissler was one of six property owners, recently reduced to two, holding out for better deals in negotiations with VIA.
Now he and one other are headed to a condemnation hearing with VIA as the agency seeks to use the power of eminent domain to buy up small pieces of property to build its new transit line.
Green Line improvements
Work on the advanced rapid transit system known as the Green Line got underway in 2022 with a public input process and is today in full construction mode expected to last until early 2028.
The Green Line will span 11.7 miles from the San Antonio International Airport to Steves Avenue, with service connections at the Stone Oak Park and Ride in the north and the Brooks Transit Center in the south, and 25 new bus stations at points between.
The route will have 17 new articulated vehicles using dedicated center-running lanes in the center of the existing roadway with signal optimization established to avoid red lights.
Thirteen new pedestrian crossings with signals are being built to support the bus line, and 58 intersections will be upgraded with synchronized signals for improved traffic flow.
The project brings with it 6.7 miles of new and repaired sidewalks and 138 new or replaced stormwater drains and other drainage improvements. Construction of the line will entail the over two-dozen bus stations and 41 new platforms.
For now, crews are moving and improving utilities — gas, sewer, electrical — in preparation for the transit lanes and stations, and the agency is working toward plans for another advanced rapid transit system spanning 7.3 miles east to west, known as the Silver Line.
VIA officials have said more businesses are could be affected by that project than were the north-south line given its route through downtown.
‘Slivers’ of property
Green Line planners projected that 153 parcels would need to be acquired for the buildout of the $480.8 million Green Line project — 47 for temporary construction easement and acquisition, 103 for temporary construction easement, and three for acquisition only.
So far, it has spent almost $5 million on transactions closed with 110 landowners.
The need to procure land for advanced rapid transit projects is not unusual.
In Indianapolis, nine property owners held out against that city’s transit system, IndyGo, prompting it to sue each individually, according to a 2017 report by the Indianapolis Business Journal.
About 40 business owners along the 13-mile route also banded together to oppose the design of the Red Line, which launched in 2019. That city’s third advanced rapid transit phase is expected to start operations in 2028.
A planning document from 2024 stated the project in Indianapolis would require the agency to purchase 70 partial parcels of land and 131 other parcels for temporary construction easements.
Since last year, VIA Metropolitan Transit has acquired at least 148 parcels of land so far along the 11.7-mile north-south Green Line route through San Antonio.
Those parcels, required for utility work, widening streets and building bus stops, are either already under VIA’s ownership or the agency is about to make the payment to acquire the property.
“When we say parcels [but] they’re all slivers,” of actual properties, said Rod Sanchez, senior vice president of planning and development at VIA. “We do not need to go acquire the entire property.”
The majority of those “slivers” are for temporary construction easements, many to relocate utilities, he said. “We’re paying for those easements so that we can do our project.”
In those cases, when the work is completed, the property reverts back to the owner.
Other parcels are needed permanently, to widen streets for bus stations or to build a sidewalk, for instance, Sanchez said. When VIA acquires that type of property, it’s eventually turned over to the city for use as right of way.
The agency has recently settled with the owners of four parcels, according to Sanchez and a progress report to the board of trustees in April.
Several properties recently acquired are situated at North Star Mall and owned by the company that operates it, NS Mall, Inc. Another is further south along San Pedro and is owned by QuickTrip Corp.
VIA is preparing for condemnation hearings — the first step in the use of eminent domain power — with the remaining two property owners.
Along with Weissler, another holdout is the owner of a shuttered jewelry and pawn shop on San Pedro.
The hearings are scheduled in the coming weeks for both although Sanchez said VIA remains open to negotiations. VIA is seeking both a temporary construction easement and acquisition for each of the properties, said a spokeswoman.
The Texas constitution grants the right of eminent domain to government entities like VIA when a property is needed for public benefit or necessity, including economic development. But it’s not always without consternation and legal maneuverings.
In a recent notable case, a San Antonio bar owner fought for several years against the General Land Office which had sought to acquire his property on East Houston Street via eminent domain for the Alamo Visitor Center and Museum.
An agreement was forged in fall 2023. The sales price was not disclosed.
In March, San Antonio resident Herschell Boyd told the VIA board he was preparing to enter into negotiations with VIA over a place he inherited from his father — commercial property Boyd did not want to sell. VIA is seeking to acquire the property to support service improvements unrelated to the Green Line.
“No matter what happens in that meeting, I want you to know that I will be at every meeting VIA and the City of San Antonio has as your ‘ghost of eminent domain past,’” he said.
Since then, Boyd and VIA have continued to trade messages and phone calls in a dispute over the offer price for his property at 107 Mary Louise, which is situated along Fredericksburg Road bus routes.
Boyd, a school librarian, told the Report he is hoping the issue can be resolved without the expense of hiring legal counsel.
Appraisals and ‘sacrifice’
In Weissler’s case, appraisers for both sides are expected to meet at a hearing in the coming weeks to hear arguments and decide the price — and the terms of an agreement, which is part of the dispute, he said.
Weissler, who at one time conducted appraisals on VIA’s behalf, said it is typical for the transit agency to acquire the land for construction then turn it over to the City of San Antonio.
But if that happens, he worries about losing all ingress and egress to the parking lot facing San Pedro on his property, he said. And if he loses parking, he could lose a tenant; many acupuncture patients have limited mobility, he said, so spaces near the door are critical for the clinic.
“I want to be assured that they pay me for that inconvenience — the fact that I can only have secondary access — and I don’t have a corner location anymore because they took all my frontage,” he said.
The property owner believes he has a good case. But VIA also could change its plan, Weissler said, having already done that once during negotiations, reducing the temporary construction easement period from three years to 30-60 days.
At any rate, Weissler still expects to lose when Green Line construction is complete.
He predicts the bus lane will make it difficult for vehicles to enter and exit the property and it’s the reason, in his view, there are for-sale signs popping up all along the route. “We are sacrificing for the city to have a Green Line,” he said.
VIA’s traffic study describes a different outcome, Sanchez said. The transit system could deliver more customers to those businesses, and re-engineering traffic signals and widened intersections should improve driving conditions along San Pedro.
“All of this is going to make traffic flow better, not just for our buses, but for everybody,” he said.
In the meantime, the eminent domain process has moved negotiations along so that the real estate acquisition phase for the Green Line is nearly complete.
While some property owners have held out for greater payments, most acquiesce once they understand that their property isn’t being taken away, Sanchez said.
“We’re borrowing your property for ‘this’ period of time — in a lot of cases, we’re talking 2-3-4 weeks only,” he said.
