A Newbern-based limited partnership is asking a Hale County circuit judge to void the City of Greensboro’s closure of a section of Airport Loop Road, arguing the city vacated a public road that does not lie inside its municipal limits.
Walthalia, Ltd., I, whose general partner is Robert C. Walthall, filed the appeal August 6 against the city, the Greensboro City Council and Mayor Ralph A. Howard.
The partnership owns land along Airport Loop Road and says the road is its means of getting in and out of its property.
The appeal challenges Resolution 2026-07, adopted by the council July 14, which closed and vacated a stretch of the road adjacent to the Greensboro Municipal Airport.
The vacated section runs roughly 350 feet along the 60-foot right of way and covers just under half an acre.
Walthalia contends the city had no jurisdiction to close the road because, the appeal states, the road is not situated within the City of Greensboro as state law requires. It also argues the council acted over the formal objection of an abutting property owner.
The partnership asks the court to declare the resolution null and void and has demanded a jury trial.
In a written objection filed with the city June 12, ahead of the council’s June 23 public hearing, Walthalia argued the closure serves no legitimate public purpose and appears designed to benefit private interests the partnership said were unknown to it at the time.
The objection, which refers to the affected stretch as the West Loop Road, described the closure as part of a plan to absorb the road into the airport without compensating nearby owners, and said it would cause special injury to those owners, restrict access to their property, slow emergency response times and put utility lines in the right of way at risk.
The council’s resolution makes the opposite findings. It states that the city owns and maintains Airport Loop Road, that the section is “no longer necessary for public roadway purposes,” and that closing it promotes the public interest and the efficient use of city-owned property without depriving any abutting owner of reasonable access.
The resolution reserves all existing utility, drainage, water, sewer, gas, electric and communications easements in the vacated right of way, and the mayor signed it following the June 23 hearing at Greensboro City Hall.
Besides Walthalia, the resolution identifies the abutting owners along the closed section as Seale Farms, LLC, Michael R. Rylee, Deane Poellnitz Cook, David and Charlene Fikes, and Andrew D. Jones.
Walthalia is represented by Jane Calamusa, Matt Tompkins and Chandler Williams of the Tuscaloosa firm Rosen Harwood. The case is assigned to Circuit Judge R. Bryan Jones.
According to court records dated August 10, the city had not yet filed a response, and a motion asking the court to set the amount of the appeal bond was pending.
