By Brandon Leuallen | The Business Times
This article is a follow-up to “CDOT Sells Used Car Dealer a Lemon,” published June 4 in The Business Times. In that story, we reported about CDOT acquiring the GJ Auto Sales property through the threat of eminent domain for a planned mobility hub.
This expanded report traces the project’s timeline, revealing a process — jointly coordinated by CDOT, the City of Grand Junction and Mesa County’s Regional Transportation Planning Office — that began before the property owners ever found out and ended only after the property owners accepted a final offer just before condemnation proceedings could begin.
For 22 years, Mike and Amber Martinez had operated GJ Auto Sales from a downtown Grand Junction corner, building up their small family business and planning to add value to the property and keep it growing for years to come.
But in the spring of 2021, behind the scenes, the City of Grand Junction, the Colorado Department of Transportation and Mesa County’s Regional Transportation Planning Office (RTPO) already were making plans for a transit project that would ultimately result in the couple’s unwilling departure.
When the couple found out, they also discovered CDOT had used their business address in a federal grant application.
The couple says they were never told about that.
They first learned about the project while being interviewed for the July 11, 2021, edition of The Daily Sentinel, which included a map with their property circled and labeled “Proposed Mobility Hub.”
“We were blindsided,” Amber Martinez said.
At the time, Mike Martinez spoke to a reporter from the Sentinel, expressing disbelief and an unwillingness to walk away from the business they had built over two decades.
“It’s hard to say anything right now. We’ve got a successful business here,” Martinez said in the article. “So, we’re not planning on going anywhere.”
In one of their first meetings with CDOT representatives, the couple shared how their children had written their names in the concrete at the entrance of their business — a symbol of their deep personal and family investment.
“We don’t pay for sentimental value,” Amber recalled CDOT saying.
The Governor Came to Town
Amber said the situation became more surreal during a major political event. On Feb. 17, 2022, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis traveled to Grand Junction to deliver his State of the State address at Two Rivers Convention Center. At the same time, in the convention center lobby, their property appeared on a large whiteboard titled “Mobility Hub – Concept Plan” for all to see — while the Martinez family still owned and operated the site.
“They put up those signs while we were still running our business,” Amber said.
They Had Plans of Their Own
Before learning of the project’s intentions, the couple had been actively investing in the future of the property, renovating part of the site to expand operations.
“We were remodeling that building. We had plans for it,” Amber said. “If we had known, we never would have started those renovations.”
READ THE FULL STORY AT THE BUSINESS TIMES