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State ordered to pay Target for interchange infringement March 23, 2018, 7:09 amIn December 2012, UDOT completed I-15 CORE, a reconstruction of a 22-mile stretch of I-15 in Utah County. As part of that project, it reconstructed the freeway interchange in American Fork where Main Street crosses the freeway. To construct the new interchange, UDOT condemned and then took three relatively small portions of the Alpine Valley Shopping Center where the Target is located. The previous freeway on-ramp had been at grade level with Main Street, but the new interchange rose more than 23 feet and necessitated a much steeper on-ramp. To facilitate construction of the heightened northbound I-15 on-ramp, UDOT built a retaining wall along the on-ramp and constructed an earthen slope alongside it partly on the claimant's property, taking a perpetual "slope easement" to do so. In addition to putting the dirt slope on the claimants land, the interchange blocked people's view of the Target store and adjoining businesses. The new design also eliminated for what UDOT called "safety reasons, "a right-out exit onto Main Street from the Target parking lot which was frequently used by customers to easily access the freeway on-ramp. Target took Weingarten/Miller/American Fork LLC to court, claiming more than $2.3 million in damages. "It is a bedrock principle of both the federal and state constitutions that the government cannot take a citizen's property for public use without paying that citizen "just compensation" for the value of the property taken," Judge Ryan Harris wrote in a Feb. 9 Utah Court of Appeals opinion. At the jury trial, an appraiser presented both before and after appraisals of the property which showed it was worth about 7.5 percent, or $2.3 million, less than before UDOT had built the freeway interchange. The jury at that trial found in favor of Target and the developer, but UDOT appealed the decision, saying that the claimants had not provided sufficient evidence to prove their case. At the appeals court, Harris (and the other justices) disagreed and found it favor of the claimants. "Even though only a small portion of the enormous Interchange was actually built on the land UDOT took from Claimants … the Interchange was at least partially built on the taken property, a causal link between the taking and Claimants' severance damages for loss of visibility is presumed…Claimants are likewise entitled to recover severance damages for loss of the right-out exit onto Main Street… Because we conclude that Claimants are entitled to recover each of the categories of severance damages at issue in this appeal, it necessarily follows that their damages evidence, presented merely in a before-and-after manner, was sufficient on the facts of this case," Harris wrote. The community news source for Eagle Mountain Utah, Saratoga Springs Utah, Lehi Utah, American Fork Utah, Highland Utah, Alpine Utah, and The Cedar Valley, including Cedar Fort Utah and Fairfield Utah. Copyright 2024 The Crossroads Journal LLC. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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