It devastated us
emotionally for weeks and weeks.
It was really, really tough to deal with.
It was exhausting.
It was...
You almost feel defeated
from the very beginning.
Three small businesses
in a St. Louis suburb
are fighting to keep their storefronts
after the city wrongfully
labeled them as blighted.
Imminent domain abuse like this occurs
when the government takes property,
not for public use, but for private
economic development.
In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court
sanctioned this type of action,
but the American people were appalled.
In just a few short years,
I.J. convinced nearly every state to
reform their constitutions and laws
to prevent imminent
domain from being abused.
This included Missouri.
But Brentwood thinks it has found a way
around those reforms.
Bob Story owns Feathercraft Fly Fishing,
a business his father founded in 1955.
He's rented the same building from the
George family for 35 years.
If you look at their
map of what their plan is,
they want to tear this building down and
build it right back.
They just want a different
building than this building.
After the city
completed a multi-year project
to upgrade the streets
and prevent flooding,
a major developer set its
sights on Manchester Road.
To try to accomplish its plans,
the city wrongfully labeled 75 properties
across 40 acres as blighted.
Now, people who built
successful and unique businesses
and who weathered years of construction
headaches are going to be forced out.
Sisters Amy and Carolyn built Time for
Dinner, a meal prep company.
They can't imagine moving.
It's very daunting to
think about having to move
because of the quantity of specialized
equipment that we have.
I am afraid that it would
overwhelm our budget to do that.
The Meyers run
Convergence Dance and Body Center.
They chose their location because they
wanted to be part of this community,
and their lease includes an option to buy
their building after seven years.
They invested more than $100,000,
thinking they'd found
a permanent location.
If we had to move, it would
be a major financial impact,
and we don't know really
if we would be able to.
It was so expensive to move
from our previous location
and the build out that we did here.
Feathercraft has been in
the same place for decades.
We customized every inch of this building
to fit the way that we do business,
which is very unique.
It's not like picking
up and moving an office,
an attorney's office,
say, or something like that.
The business owners had no idea that
Brentwood designated
their properties as blighted,
which makes it possible for Brentwood to
take their locations
using imminent domain.
The blight designation, it
just kind of slid in there.
It felt like we were hoodwinked, I think,
that there was no warning.
Things were really moving quickly here
and kept very silent,
almost purposely so.
I've done all of the taxes,
paid all of the insurance,
and had everything performed punctually.
There was never any mailing
communications about blight.
There are two problems with the city's
blight designations.
First, these
properties are in good shape.
They are loved and well maintained.
They are not blighted.
It's in perfect condition. It
has been in perfect condition.
And I feel like it's a mechanism to just
take control and do what
they want with the land.
If there are select few buildings that
didn't maintain their
appearance or whatever,
then enforce that with code.
The second problem is that Brentwood
can't use imminent domain
to take private property
unless there's a
legitimate public purpose.
And the main purpose stated by the city
is flood mitigation.
But the city and state already spent $120
million doing just that.
While we have been here,
this building has never flooded.
And our landlord, who goes back to the
early 90s, said that it's never flooded
since he's been here.
It really upset us because my dad did a
lot of work to begin with
to make sure that this
stayed out of the floodplain.
What the city is doing to
the businesses is just wrong.
They worked hard to build their American
dream, and now they might lose it
simply because the city thinks it can get
more tax revenue from someone else.
So it's not just here in this little
small feather craft building.
It goes throughout the corridor and
throughout Missouri
and throughout the U.S.
This wasn't what America was built on.
Why are people incentivized to work hard
and go to work every single day
if it's going to be yanked away?
You know, how do you start over when
you've done everything
and you did it right, like one location,
a bigger location, small loan,
paid it off, a bigger loan, paid it off,
and then this happened.
And I was like, I don't
know that I can do this again.
Now, I.J. is helping the business and
property owners fight back
and hoping to prevent
any other city in Missouri
from using bogus blight designations to
take homes or businesses.
It's not right that we
lose our place of business
because Brentwood
wants to make more money.
If Brentwood can take our property just
by saying it's blighted,
they can take anybody's property, and so
can any other municipality.
We don't want to go anywhere.
You know, I want to be here for as long
as I own this company.
This is where I want it to be.
If we don't fight, then the next little
guy gets stepped on,
then the next little guy gets stepped on.
I mean, someone asked us
to at least try to stop it.