I-95 construction leaving Jacksonville church in court fight with state DOT

Demolition to widen Interstate 95 on Jacksonvilles Southside is feeding a court battle between the state and a hard-pressed church congregation over whats not being torn down.

Glorious Bethlehem Temple, a Pentecostal church near Philips Highway, was slated to be bought and bulldozed by the Florida Department of Transportation along with nearly two dozen houses in an area where a drainage pond was planned for the states Overland Bridge replacement project to rebuild miles of I-95.

After the church balked at the states offer for its 1954-vintage building, saying it couldnt build a replacement church for the $391,070 that was on the table, the state said it would rework the pond and leave the church where it was, ringed by empty, overgrown lots where homes were bulldozed.

So the church is suing, figuring members already spent years planning, buying land and making arrangements to move somewhere with neighbors again.

Its been a long haul, said Donald Richardson, pastor of the 85-member church on Wister Street two lots from the interstate. Its been four long, sometimes grueling years. We didnt come this far to not see this thing all the way through.

The highway project leaves the church isolated, and the state should pay to make up for that, a church lawyer said.

By intention, FDOT means to take the neighborhood, but leave the church, attorney Andrew Prince Brigham wrote when he filed the lawsuit. He argued the state was using a consummate bully tactic to push the church to sell at such a low price it violated the churchs property rights.

A Jacksonville jury should decide that, a judge ruled this month, denying state requests first to dismiss the lawsuit completely, then to move the case to a court in Tallahassee.

While it does not appear often, state courts in and outside of Florida have accepted this cause of action, Circuit Judge Virginia Norton wrote in her ruling, and said the issues at stake should be decided close to home.

A DOT spokesman said his agency isnt trying to bully anyone, and tried to find a solution that would serve the state and the church.

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I-95 construction leaving Jacksonville church in court fight with state DOT