In an eminent domain taking, fair market value is not the price you paid or the county’s assessed number. It reflects what the property demonstrably is and what it is documented to become, which is why an owner with filed plans, rezoning approvals and engineering drawings negotiates from a different position than an owner who bought a parcel and sat on it.
Dr. Elayne Brunson bought a full downtown block in Sumter, South Carolina in 2022 — including the city’s old municipal power plant, shut down in 1925 and vacant since the early 1990s. A road-widening project next to an adjacent bridge put her in multiple state condemnation cases. One settled. One is pending, with her legal team requesting a jury trial.
What follows is the practical sequence: what to document after closing, how to read condemnation exposure before you buy, the environmental grant deadline that catches most first-time commercial buyers, and how a rezoning win can be quietly reversed by a design overlay.
Key takeaways
- File your development plan with the city, architects and engineers immediately after closing on commercial property — planning documents and blueprints become part of the valuation record if a taking follows.
- Environmental cleanup grant programs can have eligibility windows that close when the deed transfers into your entity name. Ask before you take title, not after.
- A condemning authority that underestimates how far along your development is will often revise its offer once the paper trail surfaces. Brunson’s state agency moved toward settlement after learning her progress.
- Rezoning is not permanent. A city-wide downtown rezoning can pull your parcel into a design overlay after the fact — showing up at planning and city council is how you get grandfathered.
- Lenders generally will not write permanent financing on a shell building with no electric, gas or water, and environmental clearance often comes before the lending conversation starts.
From the Real Estate Pros Show
This article draws on an interview with Dr. Elayne Brunson of Sumter Power Village on the Real Estate Pros Show, hosted by Issa Hanna.
Why Documented Development Plans Change the Compensation Math
The single highest-return hour you can spend after closing on a commercial parcel is writing down what you intend to build and getting it into the hands of the city, your architect and your engineer. That paper trail is the difference between being valued as a speculator and being valued as a developer.
Brunson puts it directly: when you buy, especially commercial, put your plan in writing immediately and get it to your city or municipality and to your architects and engineers, so there is a record of what you were going to do. Her reasoning is that the planning work and blueprints are part of what gets counted, versus a property you simply purchased and sat on, which gets valued as exactly that.
Host Issa Hanna ran the same play in Cleveland years earlier. The city moved to acquire three adjacent duplexes. He owned one; two neighbors owned the others. Both neighbors settled in the $50,000 to $60,000 range. He refused to budge, repeating that he had just bought the property and had plans to add value to it. The city paid him $100,000 — roughly $40,000 more than the owners on either side, for comparable buildings on the same street.
The mechanics matter less than the posture. A condemning authority is making an offer based on what it can see. If all it can see is a deed and a vacant structure, that is the number you get. If it can see submitted plans, an approved rezoning, engineering drawings and a construction sequence, it is now arguing against evidence rather than against your opinion.
Do it in the first week. Plans drafted after a condemnation notice arrives look exactly like what they are.
Reading Eminent Domain Exposure Before You Close
Condemnation risk is geographic and it is usually visible before you buy. Brunson’s block sits next to what was a bridge, and the road is being expanded. That single adjacency produced multiple state eminent domain cases against her — one already closed, another still pending with a court date and a jury trial requested by her attorneys.
She had never heard the term eminent domain before entering commercial real estate. That is not unusual. Residential investors can go decades without encountering it; a single commercial parcel next to a transportation project can generate several cases at once.
Before you close on anything near a bridge, highway interchange, rail corridor or utility easement, pull the state DOT and municipal capital improvement plans and find out what is funded and what is in design. Road projects have long lead times and they are public record.
The other thing worth noting is what happened once Brunson’s development progressed. She believes the state did not realize how far along she was, and now appears to want to settle rather than face a jury. Her read on the pending case: they do not seem to want to go to court. That is the documentation strategy paying off inside an active negotiation.
Expect adjacent-owner noise too. Brunson’s block had sat vacant for roughly thirty years. As soon as she took title, neighbors challenged her in court claiming portions of the land were theirs. Long-vacant assemblages accumulate informal use, encroachments and unrecorded assumptions. Order the survey early and budget for the possibility that someone contests a boundary the moment the property changes hands.
When you buy a property, especially if it’s commercial, put your plan in writing immediately. Get it to your city or your municipality and maybe your architects and engineers. That way you have a paper trail of what you were going to do — your planning, your blueprints, all of that is actually included in your market value.
— Dr. Elayne Brunson, Sumter Power Village
The Environmental Grant Mistake: Contact the State Before the Deed Transfers
Here is the costliest thing Brunson learned on this deal: South Carolina has a program that will grant money for environmental cleanup, but you have to reach out to the state before the deed transfers into your business name to qualify. She already held title before she learned there was an environmental dimension to the property at all.
The lesson generalizes. Brownfield and voluntary cleanup programs frequently key eligibility to the timing of acquisition and to pre-acquisition contact with the regulating agency. If you are buying anything with an industrial history — a power plant, a rail yard, a dry cleaner, a gas station — call the state environmental department while the property is still under contract. Rules vary by state, so verify the specific program before you rely on this.
What rescued her position was time. The plant sat vacant since the early 1990s, so most of the contamination dissipated on its own. The most recent testing was done ten years prior and showed the site close to natural groundwater-level quality. She still owes one final round of testing, but the state environmental department agreed to let her run it while construction is underway, which keeps the timeline moving.
Two operational points worth copying:
- One building on the block was never part of the contamination and is already cleared. Separating clean structures from affected ones lets you start work on part of the asset while the rest is in process.
- She cannot approach a lender until she has a clean bill of health from environmental. On a contaminated commercial site, environmental clearance is a gate that sits in front of the financing conversation, not beside it.
Zoning Is a Two-Way Street: Rezoning Wins and Overlay Risk
Brunson bought the block zoned industrial in 2022. Her first stage of development was rezoning it to central business district, which the city approved in 2023 — a logical move, since there is no industrial use left downtown and the block connects directly to the Main Street district.
Then, earlier this year, a letter arrived. The city was rezoning downtown and her block would fall into the new downtown core. The practical consequence was a downtown design overlay review: more money, more red tape, and outside review of her design choices.
That last part was the real problem. She has no intention of changing the historic facades on the existing buildings — the power plant’s big rounded windows are a selling point for the loft conversion. But the block also includes 1.77 acres of raw land where the new construction will not look historic. A design review board could have challenged those choices building by building.
Her fix was not legal. She went to the planning department and to city council, said plainly that she was upset, and asked. The city treated her block as grandfathered. She still falls within the downtown core, but she is exempt from the design review.
Hanna’s read on why that worked is worth taking seriously: when you deal with a municipality often enough that they know your face, and you stay cordial when you show up, they will do things for you they will not do for a stranger or for someone who arrives angry. The relationship is an asset with a measurable dollar value on a project like this.
Funding a Redevelopment Without a Track Record of Debt
Brunson owns everything debt-free and owes nothing beyond annual property taxes. That is a strong position, and it is also why construction financing is new territory for her — she has always paid cash up front.
Her plan for the next twelve months is sequenced around cash she expects to control rather than debt she has to source:
- Settle the pending eminent domain case and reinvest the proceeds directly into the block.
- Complete the final environmental round by March at the latest, and move concept designs into approved blueprints by March or April.
- Break ground on building one — the former cleaning-company office, which already has water and power and needs only cosmetic work. That building becomes the business rental space and produces the first rent roll.
- Monetize the vacant lot in the meantime with events and rented food truck spaces, aimed at the roughly one hundred people working daily on the adjacent bridge project.
That fourth item is the one most operators skip. She has a captive weekday lunch crowd a stone’s throw from raw land she already owns, and she is charging for access to it while the rest of the block is in permitting.
On the debt side, Hanna described the sequence as he has used it, not as advice: put money down, fix what needs fixing out of pocket, submit invoices and get reimbursed in draws. The bridge or construction loan is short term and has to be refinanced out into permanent financing once the work is complete. The reason for the two-step is simple — lenders will not write a traditional loan against a building with no electric, gas or running water. Brunson’s power plant is exactly that: a shell, with the old power grid still under it. Terms and structures vary by lender, so treat this as one investor’s description of how his deals were built.
Where Solo Operators Hit the Ceiling
Asked to rate her operations from one to ten, Brunson said three. Her diagnosis was specific: she needs to build a team, and she has done about as much as one person can do alone.
I could really be running and I’m probably jogging.
Marketing, by contrast, she rates an eight — and notably, not from ad spend. Visibility came from a reality show appearance, national 40 under 40 and 20 under 40 awards, and local news coverage. Three of those news appearances this summer were filmed at her building while she advocated for other downtown businesses losing revenue to the bridge construction. She was not promoting her project, but the footage put her block on screen and people started reaching out.
Her reason for staying solo this long is deliberate: go as far as you can by yourself so that when you do ask for partners, you are showing dedication and a track record rather than an idea.
That instinct has a cost, and she has a hard example of it. She pitched an incubator concept — MOUs, slide decks, funding sources she had identified herself, with help from a senator’s office in touring other incubator hubs — to a local college. She says the institution took the concept and raised $16 million on it. The matter is headed to court.
Her response was to research the category, and she found that institution-led incubators are more likely to fail than entrepreneur-led ones. She intends to build hers on the already-cleared building on the block. The takeaway for anyone pitching a concept before they have capital: paper your disclosures, and recognize that going solo protects the idea right up until it becomes the thing limiting the project.
Frequently asked questions
Does having approved development plans actually increase what you’re paid in an eminent domain taking?
It changes what the condemning authority is valuing. Brunson’s position is that planning work and blueprints form part of the market value picture, versus a property that was purchased and left idle, which gets valued as idle. Her pending state case appears to be moving toward settlement in part because the agency did not realize how far along her development was.
Hanna’s Cleveland experience points the same direction. Two neighbors with comparable duplexes settled around $50,000 to $60,000. He held out on the argument that he had just bought the property and had plans to add value, and was paid $100,000. Valuation rules vary by state, so work with a condemnation attorney on your specific case.
What should I do the week after closing on a commercial property that might face condemnation?
Write the development plan down and distribute it. Get it to the city or municipal planning department, to your architect and to your engineer, so there is a dated record of intended use. Order a survey — long-vacant parcels attract boundary disputes the moment title changes, as Brunson found when neighbors challenged her in court over land they claimed was theirs.
Also pull the state DOT and municipal capital improvement plans for anything funded or in design near your parcel. Brunson’s exposure came from sitting next to a bridge and a road-widening project, which was public information.
Can I still get an environmental cleanup grant if the deed is already in my business name?
Possibly not, depending on the program. South Carolina’s cleanup grant program requires you to reach out before the deed transfers to your business name in order to qualify, and Brunson had already taken title before she learned the property had an environmental component at all.
Call the state environmental agency while the property is still under contract, especially on any site with industrial history. Program rules differ by state and this is not legal advice — confirm eligibility directly with the agency that administers the funds.
How do I keep a vacant commercial lot producing income before construction starts?
Rent access to it. Brunson is planning events on her 1.77 acres of raw land and renting spaces to food trucks, targeting roughly one hundred workers on the bridge project immediately adjacent to her block. The goal she states plainly is to produce a rent roll from the property in the condition it is in right now.
The other half of her approach is sequencing: break ground first on the building that already has water and power and needs only cosmetic work, so tenant income starts before the heavier rehab finishes.
What happens if the city rezones my property into a design overlay district after I’ve already rezoned it?
You may be able to get grandfathered, but you have to ask. Brunson rezoned her block from industrial to central business district in 2023, then received a letter this year that the city was rezoning downtown and her block would fall into the downtown core — triggering a design overlay review with added cost and outside review of her building designs.
She went to the planning department and spoke to city council, and the city agreed to treat her block as grandfathered. She remains in the downtown core but is exempt from the design review. Showing up in person, repeatedly and cordially, is what produced that outcome.
The bottom line
If you own or are about to own commercial property anywhere near a funded road, bridge or transit project, the action item is the same regardless of whether a notice has arrived: document the intended use now and put it on file with the city, your architect and your engineer. Evidence created before a condemnation letter carries weight that evidence created after it never will.
