City of Omaha to acquire land for expanded UNMC campus

OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) - The landscape along the Saddle Creek corridor around Leavenworth is slowly changing.

The Omaha City Council voted 6-0 to approve acquiring property for UNMC’s Saddle Creek campus. There are a number of businesses located in the city’s Public Improvements Necessity Ordinance boundary. The city will negotiate to buy or condemn the property if negotiations fail.

There are business owners concerned about where they fit into the plans for the area’s growth. Owners of two businesses along Saddle Creek tell 6 News they don’t know which way to turn, and the future of their business is up in the air. They do believe the city will take some of their property.

The City of Omaha has acquired land for what will become UNMC's expanded campus.

Jerry and Jimmy Bulanda are twins -- hence the name of their business, Twins Auto.

“Taking part of our property is taking part of our business,” Jerry said. “We’re going to be losing parking places for our customer cars.”

“Hopefully they’re going to come down and talk to us about it and give us an opportunity to grow differently or change, or buy us out and give us more land,” Jimmy said.

David Owens owns Diamond’s Edge Automotive Accessories. He says changing traffic patterns in the area will hurt both businesses. He wishes they had the chance to speak their piece about the expansion.

“I would have liked to have gotten some input into it, instead of them coming to us with ‘Hey, we’d like to do something,’ they came to us with ‘this is what’s happening, and that’s what it is’,” Owens said. “Instead of letting everybody put their input in about what could be done better to help the flow of traffic and the flow of customers, they’re going to cut off the main entrance to this neighborhood. That’s going to affect a lot of people.”

The three business owners say they haven’t heard much from the city -- and right now, they don’t think it will make a difference.

“I don’t know if we’ll have a choice. I think the plans have already been set. When we were at their little meeting, this was going to happen and this is what we’re doing, so if you like it, you like it, if you don’t, well we’ll go from there.”

City officials say if they have right-of-way or easement needs for private property, the city will negotiate with each property owner.

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