Land deal signed to build memorial for victims of United Airlines Flight 93 in the 9/11 attack in Pasadena

The United States National Park Service and an organisation representing the victims of families of the United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, have reached an agreement with a landowner to buy land to build a National Memorial in Shanksville, Pasadena, the United States.

The United States National Park Service, the federal agency of the US government that manages all National Parks and many National Monuments, and the families of the victims of Flight 93 reached an agreement with Svonavec Incorporated, the quarry company based in Somerset, Pasadena, that owns 274 acres of land at the heart of the site where United Airlines Flight 93 crashed after terrorists commandeered the plane on September 11, 2001.

In the incident, all 40 passengers and crew members were killed.

According to the agreement, a condemnation suit will be filed in federal court to determine the value of the land, which lies about 60 miles south-east of Pittsburgh.

The National Park Service said in a statement that it would take ownership of the land as soon as the case is filed in a few weeks.

The deal stipulates that the National Park Service would have immediate access to the land, even before the condemnation suit is filed – meaning that pre-construction work such as like soil sampling and surveying can be done soon enough.

The deal, the National Park Service added, would permit construction of the memorial to start later in 2009. It has been planned to complete the first part of the initial phase of the memorial by 2011.

In fact, there has been a fight lasting about seven years over the land, involving the Svonavec family, the National Park Service and the families of the victims of Flight 93.

In December 2008, the families of the victims had sent President George W Bush a letter asking him to order the Interior Department to use condemnation to force the Svonavec family to sell the land quickly.

The Washington Post newspaper quoted Patrick Svonavec, the company’s lawyer, as saying: “It didn’t make sense to delay the park from opening on the 10th anniversary of the tragedy. We didn’t want to be a holdup to that.”

Patrick Svonavec said that the two decisive factors that led to the signing of the land deal were the threat of condemnation and an appraisal that the family was shown a week ago. Two previous appraisals, he clarified, were “considered deficient by the National Park Service and were not shown to the Svonavecs.”
The agreement also includes a condition that the Svonavec family would be reimbursed about $200,000 in expenses such as lost income from rent of the land and security.

A spokesman for the US Interior Department said that the appraisal valued the land at $611,000. Earlier, the National Park Service had offered the Svonavec family $250,000 for the land and the group of families of the victims had offered $750,000.