“The University of Akron has recently purchased several land parcels in the footprint of the on-campus football stadium. According to one former landowner and other reports, UA has paid over $1.2 million to acquire five parcels of land, five homes and one business building in the past month.”
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The University of Akron has recently purchased several land parcels in the footprint of the on-campus football stadium.

According to one former landowner and other reports, UA has paid over $1.2 million to acquire five parcels of land, five homes and one business building in the past month. This leaves only three parcels of land left that the university needs to purchase.

According to Ted Curtis, Vice President for Capital Planning and Facility Management, the university has purchased a total of 26 properties in the footprint. He said UA was only waiting on both Manny and Joseph Nemer of Akron, as well as Donald Mangan of Kent, to sell, in order to have all the lots necessary for the stadium.

Curtis said Mangan was going to sell, but then backed out earlier this year.

The university has acquired a majority of the parcels and is working with the owners and through the legal system to obtain those properties at a fair price, senior public relations representative Ken Torisky said. We believe that the planned Sept. 2009 opening of the stadium still is achievable.

Curtis agreed with Torisky regarding the timeline for the acquisition of property and even said, I think we are a touch ahead right now.

Dr. Fred Fanning, who recently sold four parcels of land with five rental homes to UA, did confirm he received $797,000 for his transaction. Fanning said each of his 15 tenants will receive $1,500 from the sale to help them relocate. However, Fanning said he could not comment on anything else related to this sale.

I really can’t comment on anything, I’m really not supposed to, Fanning said. I signed a document, and I’m not really allowed to talk about the case. They offered that amount somehow, and I’m not even sure how they did that. To be honest, I don’t know, but that was the offer and I accepted it.

Fanning did not explain in detail why he waited to be among the last of the property owners to sell.

It takes a long time to sell anything, that’s all I’m telling you, he said.

Yet, Fanning did mention that he was happy with the deal and everything went well between him and UA.

It was an amicable agreement between me and the other attorneys, he said. Everything was fine, it was a friendly agreement and then we wrapped it up.

We didn’t have to go to court or anything.

Unfortunately, not all of the former property owners who recently sold appeared as content as Fanning in regard to their transaction.

For two years, they promised me they would get me another building, owner of the Odd Corner on Exchange Street, Harry Jackson said. All I wanted was to trade buildings, and then they refused to do it in the end.

Jackson, similar to Fanning, said he could not go in depth about his property sale with UA. He said he could not confirm reports that he sold his property for $443,460, but could only confirm he did sell the building.

I can tell you I sold the building, moved on April 27, that I obviously bought a new building, and that the University of Akron is losing the scholarship that I gave them because of this, Jackson said.

It was a scholarship fund that I established with the University of Akron that stipulates that if they ever used eminent domain against me they would lose the scholarship fund. It was a third of my estate, which is not small.

According to Curtis, the price UA paid the former land owners is an average of the estimates UA would receive from its appraisers.

One looks at the number of acres or portions of an acre, the square footage of the building, the size of the building and the improvements such as paved parking, lighting, stripes and evaluates all of that, Curtis said. The state of Ohio requires us to use MAI appraisers – they’re master appraisers.

MAI stands for Member of the Appraisal Institute, which is a trade organization.

We buy based on the average of their appraisal if there are more than one appraiser.

Curtis also said appraisal values issued by the county are only for tax purposes and are not used to calculate actual value.

The county is based for tax purposes, he said. It is usually about a third of the value.

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” #1.1361281:3855876605.jpg:20080221_oddcorner_cb.jpg:The Odd Corner, which UA recently purchased from Harry Jackson, caused him to move across the street.:Christopher Bair”