Flight 93 land offer expected

BY DAN NEPHIN
The Associated Press

PITTSBURGH January 09, 2009 11:51 pm

— The National Park Service expects to make an offer next week for a key piece of land for a memorial to mark the site in Somerset County where United Airlines Flight 93 crashed during the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The land, roughly 275 acres, includes the site where the airplane crashed, and the property owner has been accused of refusing to sell for a reasonable amount. The land is owned by Svonavec Inc., a quarry company, whose treasurer has repeatedly denied he’s looking for a windfall.
Mike Svonavec said he was previously offered $250,000, which he rejected as unfair. Gas and oil rights alone are worth more than that, he said. However, he has not said what he thinks the land is worth.
Past appraisals “didn’t adequately look at the resources,” park service spokesman David Barna said Friday.
“What I’ve been told is, we’re going to have something we can present next week,” Barna said.
Svonavec said Friday that he looks forward to getting the appraisal.
Construction of the $58 million, 2,200-acre permanent memorial and national park near Shanksville is scheduled to begin later this year.
Last month, relatives of the victims asked the Bush Administration to seize the land needed for the memorial, saying without it the memorial would likely not be complete for the 10th anniversary of the crash in 2011.
The Bush administration was “very reluctant to use eminent domain to take private property,” Barna said.
Barna said he understands the families’ desire that the land needed for the memorial be obtained before Bush leaves office. But, he said, the Park Service is not tied to that schedule.
Negotiations for land acquisition are complex, Barna said. He said the Park Service hasn’t been dragging its feet and that not owning the land hasn’t hindered planning of the memorial.
About 75 percent of land needed has been acquired by the Park Service and the Families of Flight 93, the family group says. A message left for the organization was not immediately returned.
Acquiring the needed land by the spring would still be enough time for part of the memorial to be in place by the 10th anniversary, Barna said.
Flight 93 was en route from Newark, N.J., to San Francisco on Sept. 11, 2001, when it was diverted by hijackers.
The official 9/11 Commission report said the hijackers crashed the plane as passengers tried to wrest control of the cockpit.