UPDATED Nov. 18: Court to let private land be seized for Carilion site

After refusing to sell their land to make way for Carilion Clinic’s sprawling medical complex, Jay and Stephanie Burkholder will now have the 3-acre commercial tract taken from them in a forced legal sale.

Condemnation of the land by the Roanoke Redevelopment and Housing Authority does not violate Virginia’s eminent domain laws, Circuit Court Judge William Broadhurst ruled.

The decision marks the first time property has been seized for the Riverside Center, a gleaming business park and medical school being constructed where a mill and other aging industries once operated along Jefferson Street and Reserve Avenue.

After Carilion and the city announced plans for the project a decade ago, most of the businesses sold out to the development authority and were demolished to make way for the complex. But the Burkholders, who own the land where Surfaces operates a flooring business, held out.

The Burkholders refused an offer from the authority that they said was too low, then challenged the condemnation of their land in a two-year legal battle that followed.

In a decision dated Thursday, Broadhurst ruled that the redevelopment authority properly found that the area surrounding the Burkholders’ land was blighted, and thus subject to condemnation.

A jury will now be impaneled to determine a fair price for the property, which the authority will pay to the Burkholders.