Mayor of Baltimore v. Smulyan

397 A.2d 198, 41 Md. App. 202, 1979 Md. App. LEXIS 266
CourtCourt of Special Appeals of Maryland
DecidedJanuary 12, 1979
Docket509, September Term, 1978
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 397 A.2d 198 (Mayor of Baltimore v. Smulyan) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Special Appeals of Maryland primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Mayor of Baltimore v. Smulyan, 397 A.2d 198, 41 Md. App. 202, 1979 Md. App. LEXIS 266 (Md. Ct. App. 1979).

Opinion

Wilner, J.,

delivered the opinion of the Court.

This is a condemnation case. It involves property in downtown Baltimore that is now part of the front lawn of the new Federal Courthouse, and, until Baltimore City condemned it in December, 1972, belonged to Harold Smulyan.

The real issue in the case, of course, is how much Mr. Smulyan should be paid for his property: what was its fair market value on December 4, 1972? The City’s appraisers testified that the fair market value on that date was between $400,000 and $420,000 — one said $400,000, the other said $420,000. Mr. Smulyan’s experts, not unexpectedly, thought the property was worth considerably more — one said $745,880, the other said $840,000. The jury topped them all; it set the value at $895,104 and returned a verdict upon inquisition in that amount.

The City, appealing, claims that this grievous error occurred because the jury was permitted to hear evidence of what it termed a “re-use” appraisal made by one of the City’s experts — Leslie Wilson — that was irrelevant and prejudicial, and that the trial court erred both in allowing such evidence to be admitted and in failing to instruct the jury to disregard it. The City frames the questions presented in its appeal in very broad terms — much broader than is necessary. What is really before us are these three questions, all of which are very closely interrelated:

(1) Did the court err in admitting testimony and exhibits relating to a 1971 appraisal made by one of its expert witnesses — Leslie Wilson?
*204 (2) Did the court err in its instructions to the jury with respect to that appraisal?
(3) Was the evidence sufficient to support the jury’s verdict?

The context in which these questions — particularly the first two — arose was a dispute between the City and Smulyan over what the “highest and best use” of the property was as of the date it was taken. At that time, the property was being used as a parking lot. It was part of a square block consisting mostly of old multi-story loft buildings used for light manufacturing or wholesale trade enterprises. The City’s position, espoused through its expert, Mr. Wilson, was that the highest and best use of the property was its then current actual use — a parking lot. Smulyan, on the other hand, considered the City’s position to be somewhat myopic, and therefore unrealistic. Through his appraisers, he looked around to the extensive redevelopment effort that had been going on in downtown Baltimore for some two decades, adjudged that his property and the block of which it was a part was next in line for major renewal and redevelopment, and thus believed that the highest and best use for the property was a high-rise office building.

This dispute over “highest and best use”, so pivotal to the respective values placed upon the property, constituted the setting from which the legal issues arose. To comprehend that setting however, one must know as well some of the geography of downtown Baltimore, the nature and history of urban redevelopment in that part of the City, and how that redevelopment came to affect this property. We have attached as an appendix to this Opinion a copy of a map of downtown Baltimore that was admitted as an exhibit in the case, and have delineated and marked on it the relevant boundaries and landmarks. It will serve as a convenient reference document for the descriptions that follow.

There were three major urban renewal projects that had some bearing on the Smulyan property. These were:

(1) Charles Center, involving a 33-acre tract bounded by Saratoga Street on the north, Charles Street on the east, *205 Lombard Street on the south, and Liberty Street and Hopkins Place on the west. This project — the earliest of the three — was planned in the 1950’s and built in the 1960’s and 1970’s, beginning at the northern end and moving south. On the southernmost border — the north side of Lombard Street — is the new Federal Office Building (labeled by us “FOB” on the Appendix) and Charles Center South, a high-rise office building at the northwest corner of Charles and Lombard Streets. By the time of the taking here, most of Charles Center, including the Federal Office Building, had been completed.

According to Martin Millspaugh, a witness for the City who was deeply involved in the planning and coordination of much of the overall redevelopment, Charles Center was intended “to lead the way ... and to stimulate additional development of the same kind in the downtown area”, and it clearly had that effect. Paralleling the development of Charles Center itself, there was extensive private redevelopment on its eastern fringe, resulting in the construction of at least five additional high-rise buildings just outside the perimeter of Charles Center. 1

(2) Inner Harbor One. While Charles Center was yet in its infancy, a second, even more ambitious, project was on the drawing board — redevelopment of the City’s inner harbor area. This is a much larger area lying to the south and southeast of Charles Center, and plans for it were broken into two projects — Inner Harbor One and Inner Harbor West.

The planning for Inner Harbor One started in earnest in the early and mid-1960’s. This project encompassed the land area east of Charles Street, south of Lombard Street, and north of Key Highway, thus enclosing the inner harbor basin located to the southeast of Charles Center. By 1972, according to Mr. Millspaugh, most of the redevelopment sites in this area had been sold to developers, and demolition of existing structures on those sites was about 75% complete. One large *206 new structure — the U.S.F. & G. Building — had been “topped off”, and plans were under way for the new IBM Building.

(3) Inner Harbor West — the second phase of the overall inner harbor redevelopment — was officially authorized in March, 1971. It encompassed the area directly west of Inner Harbor One and directly south of Charles Center, being bounded on the north by Lombard Street, on the east by Charles Street, on the south by Hughes Street, and on the west by Sharp Street and Hopkins Place.

The Smulyan property lay within the Inner Harbor West area. It was part of a square block (which we shall call the “Courthouse block”) bounded by Lombard Street on the north, Hanover Street on the east, Pratt Street on the south, and Sharp Street on the west. The Smulyan property itself consisted of three contiguous lots known as 106-114 South Hanover Street. It fronted for 126 feet on the west side of Hanover Street, commencing about 60 feet south of Lombard Street, and extended westerly for a depth of 148 feet to an alley known as Sutton Street. Altogether the property comprised 18,648 square feet.

Most of the evidence pertaining to the overall redevelopment effort in downtown Baltimore came from Mr. Millspaugh, the City’s lead-off witness.

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Bluebook (online)
397 A.2d 198, 41 Md. App. 202, 1979 Md. App. LEXIS 266, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mayor-of-baltimore-v-smulyan-mdctspecapp-1979.