Thanks to a recent land agreement, the District now has control of enough of the blighted Skyland Shopping Center to demolish at least part of it as early as this fall, an official with the city's Deputy Mayor's Office of Planning and Economic Development said Tuesday.

Last week, a city jury awarded one of Skyland’s 16 landowners $1.85 million for its portion of the nearly 19-acre site at the intersection of Good Hope Road and Alabama Avenue. The property owner had asked for $9.8 million.

There are still several outstanding disputes with property owners, but Planning and Economic Development spokesman Jose Sousa said the city had enough land to warrant "some phased demolition this fall on parts that we control."

Skyland has been a decades-long work in progress for the city, which announced its intentions to redeveop the area during the Barry administration. In 2005, the city seized the property via eminent domain, which prompted a slew of lawsuits from landowners who said they weren't going down without a fight.

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