GlobeSt.com: So there's enough business out there to roll out nationally?

Moritz: Well, just about every major city has a transit system. In fact, some of the secondary cities have transit systems and are growing. For example, Charlotte is building a big system, and Cleveland has a big system. GlobeSt.com: What's your mission?

Moritz: Our specific goal would be to help them manage their assets, because people who own rights of way are typically not in the business of real estate, which is secondary to their core purpose. Consequently, they often run into problems for which they don't have the professional staff.

GlobeSt.com: Problems such as?

Moritz: Such as encroachers, which is one of the biggest problems, because abutters often have the mistaken notion that adverse possession applies to rights of way. What they don't know is that transit agencies are typically exempt from adverse possession. In its infinite wisdom, the federal government included that in the land grabs when they originally formed the railroads. So encroachment is a big problem and a liability issue.

GlobeSt.com: There's a big economic development aspect to your specialty, no?

Moritz: Absolutely. We're very involved in transit-oriented development. It benefits the community in two ways. It's a smart-growth initiative to cluster development around transportation nodes. It takes people out of their cars and increases ridership, so from the transportation-agency side of it, it improves revenue. One of the important things we produce for transit agencies is what they call non-fare revenues, which is an increasingly large part of an agency's budget. If you can look at the property ownership of a transit agency, you can capture that value by encouraging development around those nodes. That can be done in a couple of ways. In new transportation agencies, when they go about procuring property for a new facility, we encourage the idea of taking more properties than is necessary to build the transit system. If they can take additional property around the station area, they can encourage the transit-oriented development because they're controlling the property.

GlobeSt.com: All at once, I'm hearing eminent domain.

Moritz: Yes, because there's not a lot of right of way waiting around to be built on.

GlobeSt.com: It's not a very popular concept. What's your take?

Moritz: In this particular instance, we're not talking about eminent domain to benefit a private party. It's for a public purpose.

GlobeSt.com: It's not the use, but the taking that's the issue. How does your organization respond?

Moritz: It's eminent domain for the greater good, although we don't focus a lot on acquisitions. We're advisors during the planning process to look at the market around transportation nodes and explore what lands and station areas might be desirable to encourage transit-oriented development. The idea is to capture some of the value that the new transit system is going to create. It's been shown time and time again, when a transit agency builds a new line, property values go up.

GlobeSt.com: Beyond values, what benefits does the community get?

Moritz: One project we've done is Woodlands Station in Newton, MA. It's not an eminent-domain case, but it illustrates the point. Woodlands Station is in an upper-middle-class community. The MBTA needed more parking but didn't have the money to build. So we put out an RFP with a long-term lease, an 85-year lease, on the land. The purpose would be to use the land for whatever private purpose was most desirable for that area, replace the parking that the MBTA had and add 500 additional spaces. The developer--National Development--is building rental housing, condominiums and a parking structure that will accommodate both their needs and those of the MBTA. As part of that, they've also realigned the platforms so the MBTA can get in longer trains, and they're creating handicap-accessibility. As a result, the MBTA has gotten cash and the additional parking space; the community has additional housing, part of it affordable; and all the land is back on the tax rolls.

GlobeSt.com: So what projects are you looking at for this year and next?

Moritz: We just now rolling out our services to others. We've responded to several RFPs and have bids out for Septa in Philadelphia and the MTA in New York. We're also talking with the departments of transportation in New York and in Vermont. Many of these authorities just don't know what they own.

GlobeSt.com: That's such a common problem among users.

Moritz: They don't think of their real estate as an asset.

GlobeSt.com: You're taking your show on the road. Is it the right time for the transit industry to hear about the privatization of their real estate?

Moritz: It's a good time because they're so cash strapped. They realize they have this underutilized asset and they've got to go anywhere they can to find additional monies. It's not just rents and selling off property, it's also obtaining infrastructure they would not otherwise be able to purchase. During the fiber-optics boom we leased a lot of rights-of-way for fiber optic, and we got additional fiber for signal communications. I mean once the ground is open you might as well throw it all in. Now we're working on systems such as televisions on railroad cars and in buses that can have homeland security announcements and alerts. We're doing a lot of things in terms of non-fare revenue generating initiatives.