A 580-square-foot parcel, a planned rail bridge, and a defendant list stacked with lenders
Amtrak has asked a federal court to take a small strip of Washington land for a new rail bridge - and has named Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and U.S. Bank as possible lienholders.
The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, better known as Amtrak, filed a condemnation action on August 3, 2026, seeking to acquire 580 square feet of vacant, unoccupied land north of Maine Avenue S.W. in Washington, D.C. The parcel is small. The defendant list is not, and most of the names on it belong to lenders and trustees.
That is the part worth a mortgage professional's attention. When a public entity uses eminent domain to take land, it has to clear every interest attached to that land, including old mortgages and deeds of trust. So Amtrak named the parties who might still hold a lien. According to the filing, Goldman Sachs Mortgage Company, L.P., Goldman Sachs Commercial Mortgage Capital, L.P., U.S. Bank National Association and Bank of America, N.A. as successor by merger to LaSalle Bank "have or may claim a property interest by and through one or more mortgage, deed of trust, promissory note, or otherwise."
The wording matters: may claim. The filing does not accuse any of these institutions of wrongdoing. They are named because their names may still sit on paper tied to this ground, and Amtrak says it wants that paper cleared before it builds.
The land is owned by Parcel 49B Limited Partnership, which the filing describes as a dissolved D.C. limited partnership whose general and limited partners are, in the filing's words, "dissolved, terminated, forfeited, and/or cancelled." With the owner effectively gone, Amtrak says it had no ordinary way to negotiate a purchase - one reason it turned to condemnation.
Amtrak says it needs the parcel to build a new two-track passenger rail bridge linking Virginia and the District, along with improvements to existing track next to the parcel. The filing links the work to a 2021 funding agreement with the Virginia Passenger Rail Association, aimed at moving toward near-hourly service between Washington and Richmond. The land sits beside an existing rail corridor, according to the filing, and is needed to ease a bottleneck at the southern end of the Northeast Corridor.
The dollars are modest for a project of this scale. Amtrak says a certified general appraiser valued the parcel at $20,000. The railroad says it offered that same amount to buy the land, that the owner's representatives countered with, in the filing's words, "a significantly higher amount," and that it has deposited $20,000 with the court as its estimate of just compensation.
The remaining defendants - Confederation Life Insurance Company, Tower Associates II, Inc., and two substitute trustees named only in that capacity - are listed as parties that may claim an interest in the land. None is accused of any wrongdoing.
The takeaway for the industry is quiet but real. A lien does not disappear just because a project needs the land beneath it. When property is condemned, whoever may hold an old mortgage or deed of trust on it can still be named as a defendant while the taking clears title.
For now, this is a filing and a set of requests to the court, nothing more. No court has ruled on Amtrak's right to take the land or on whether $20,000 is the right price.
