NASHUA – The Broad Street Parkway was built to bring businesses to the city’s Millyard district, but instead, the roadway destroyed a manufacturing business that at one time had more than 60 employees, according to a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Concord.

"It’s an absolute travesty that needs to be remedied," said Mark Bourbeau, the attorney representing the owners of the Ultima Nashua Industrial Corp.

Ultima-Nimco’s owner, Anoosh Irvan Kiamanesh, is seeking $25 million from the city, the New Hampshire Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration, claiming these governmental agencies effectively destroyed the company by taking its property through eminent domain and never coming up with money for Ultima-Nimco to relocate.

The city has since evicted Kiamanesh from the Millyard property in question, stranding millions of dollars in manufacturing equipment, Bourbeau said.

"This is one of the most grossly unfair uses of eminent domain against someone I have ever seen," Bourbeau said Friday. "It’s the reason people hate the government."

Steven Bolton, the city’s attorney, said Kiamanesh had his chance to seek reimbursement, and missed the opportunity years ago. He said Kiamanesh can’t make a legal claim for relief in this case.

"They seem to think something wrong was done to them," Bolton said.

The parkway was completed last year at a cost of around $80 million, taking decades of planning and advocacy by city officials to get the state and federal funding for the project. Kiamanesh’s story starts in 2000, when city and state officials first approached him about the parkway

According to the lawsuit, Ultima-Nimco, a manufacturer of large custom machine parts and equipment, owned the property at 1 Pine Street Ext. The company has manufacturing equipment worth $12 million, much of it specially installed. The city wanted to take the property and use it for what was then a planned four-lane parkway.

The city eventually paid Kiamanesh $1.2 million for the property through the eminent domain process, but neither the city, state nor federal agencies involved ever came up with the money required to relocate the business, as had been promised, according to the lawsuit.

Bolston said Kiamanesh never requested money for the relocation. While Kiamanesh’s lawsuit states that his company was promised relocation money up front, and Bourbeau said the company got bids on moving costs, Bolton said people and companies that received relocation funds got that money as reimbusements after they moved.

"They never submitted for relocation expenses," Bolton said.

Bourbeau said it would take Ultima-Nimco six months, and cost about $3 million to $4 million, to move all of the specialty equipment. That isn’t counting the cost of buying a new property.

Kiamanesh had tried to buy a property on Northeastern Boulevard for a little more than $3 million. He twice put $100,000 down payments on a new property in the city, but those deals fell apart when the relocation money never came though, according to the lawsuit.

Kiamanesh’s business suffered as word got out that it was trying to move, but did not have a permanent home, according to Bourbeau. Finally, in 2010, the city informed Kiamanesh that the design for the parkway changed from a four-lane road to a two-lane road. The city would no longer need the property, and offered to sell it back to Kiamanesh for the same $1.2 million.

Bourbeau said the company had no money to buy back its home, as all of the uncertainty surrounding the move and eminent domain taking reduced its sales. According to the lawsuit, the company had sales of about $3.5 million a year, but went down to about $600,000 a year because of the eminent domain issues.

Now, the company has been shut out of the property because the city went through with an eviction. The city had demanded $8,800 a month in rent, and asked the company to come up with back rent, Bourbeau said. All of Ultima-Nimco’s employees have been laid off, and the company’s plans to continue with a Chinese partnership have stalled out.

Bolton said Kiamanesh was allowed to stay in the building for years despite not paying rent, but the time has come for the city to do something.

"Eventually, enough was enough," Bolton said.

Bourbeau has filed an injunction against the city to keep it from taking or selling off the millions of dollars’ worth of manufacturing equipment inside as the lawsuit makes its way through the federal court. According to court records, the city and the state are seeking to have the case dismissed.

Damien Fisher can be reached at 594-1245 or dfisher@nashuatelegraph.com.

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