Kotis continues federal fight over Greensboro greenway route, taking appeal to Federal Circuit

Marty Kotis is pressing ahead with his federal fight over Greensboro’s greenway corridor after a judge awarded his companies $52 million for land tied to the trail. The dispute reaches beyond one developer’s balance sheet: it tests who controls the former Norfolk Southern line along Battleground Avenue, what Greensboro can protect as public space, and how much the railbanking route can still shape nearby development.

The case centers on a 3.1-mile former railroad corridor in Greensboro that became the Atlantic & Yadkin Greenway. The U.S. Court of Federal Claims said Kotis Associates, Kotis Holdings and Westover Terrace II own 13 parcels underlying and immediately adjacent to the corridor. The federal government conceded liability, leaving only the question of compensation. Judge Loren A. Smith entered judgment on April 22, 2025, and awarded just compensation in April, after the Kotis entities sought more than $44.7 million plus interest.

Kotis filed the federal case in 2020, arguing that railbanking rules tied to the greenway blocked development on land he owned near Westover Terrace, including a planned Publix supermarket. The award, reported as likely the largest ever in a rails-to-trails land case, gave Kotis a major legal victory, but not the end of the dispute. The appeal was docketed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on June 26, 2025, keeping the case alive in the next stage of federal review.

The fight has already altered development plans in Greensboro. In April 2025, Kotis told WFMY News 2 he was abandoning the Publix project on Westover Terrace, saying the broader Midtown vision would be refocused elsewhere because of the railbanking restrictions. That makes the case more than a courtroom fight over compensation. It has already changed where one of Greensboro’s best-known developers says he will build next.

Greensboro’s greenways department says the Atlantic & Yadkin Greenway is 7.5 miles long and is the city’s only current rail trail. The city says it was built on the abandoned Atlantic-Yadkin railroad bed with help from transportation staff, nonprofit partners, private companies and state grant funding. City records also say greenways serve both recreation and transportation, and that the A&Y connects toward downtown Greensboro and Summerfield. The federal claims court opinion noted the city had been working with Kotis to route the greenway to maximize downtown growth potential, underscoring the central tension in the case: whether a public trail built on old rail land can coexist with private redevelopment plans, or whether one must give way to the other.