Bryan Bowers and his business partner Mike Licata build things. And they pride themselves on building things the people in their upstate New York community actually want and need. That is what led them to buy a plot of land across from a new hospital in Utica, New York: They had heard from doctors in the area that they would happily rent space from a Bowers building if one went up.
Unfortunately, they weren’t the only ones with plans for a medical office building near the hospital—or with plans for their newly acquired land. A different group of doctors had formed a private company they called Central Utica, LLC, that had plans for a building next door. After Bryan and Mike signed a contract to buy their new land, Central Utica announced that it wanted Bryan and Mike’s land, too—to use as a private parking lot for its building.
Related Case
Eminent Domain | Private Property
Bowers v. Oneida County Industrial Development Agency
Can the government take your property just to hand it over to your business competitor? That is the question New York developer Bryan Bowers is asking the United States Supreme Court after New York’s courts…