Hartford Business Journal

14 Hartford Business Journal • April 17, 2017 www.HartfordBusiness.com www.kelsercorp.com 111 Roberts St, Suite D East Hartford, CT 06108 860 610 2200 Make sure students have earned their grades, not hacked them. Educational institutions have unique cybersecurity challenges. We have solutions. www.kelsercorp.com/defendeducation from page 1 its market value climb 135 percent to $44.6 million from $18.9 million. Higher taxes could lead to higher office and apartment rents and thwart future capital investment in the city, realty experts have said. Landlords whose assessment appeals were denied, however, can file suit in state court, to seek redress. It's unclear how many of the rejected appeals will wind up in court, but with the city receiving about 1,200 assess- ment appeals this year vs. 700 to 800 in 2012, there could be significant activity. Typically, Philip said, many of the suits are settled and never see trial. Those that do, he said, usually are resolved with the judge splitting the difference between the city's valuation and the appellant's. Other high-profile office towers whose owners appealed their 2016 valuations but were rejected were: 100 Pearl St.; 100 Consti- tution Plaza; CityPlace I and CityPlace II; 280 Trumbull St.; and State House Square (10 and 50 State St.), according to Philip. However, many of the city's largest corpo- rate residents and taxpayers — The Hartford, Aetna and Travelers — didn't appeal their 2016 assessments despite their respective down- town headquarter properties each experienc- ing double-digit market-value increases. Meantime, for property owners whose appeals prevailed, the reductions amounted to only a $5.2 million cut to the city's previous $4.07 billion grand-list valuation, Philip said. That will result in about a $383,000 annual trim in the city's property-tax receipts. The grand list grew from $3.7 billion a year ago. "The workload was astonishing,'' Philip said of the assessment appeals, which were heard in a one-month window Monday through Friday, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. "There were so many of them. We really provoke them when we do a revaluation.'' Scarborough Street Michael T. McGarry, who has sat on the assessment appeals board since 2012, said owners of big, historic dwellings in the city's West End — Scarborough Street, in particu- lar — benefited from challenging the city's valuations of their properties. As HBJ reported earlier this year, Scar- borough Street is the epicenter of a deep lull in home sales in the West End. Houses there, generally, have suffered from a drop in demand for large, historic houses like the ones lining the leafy thoroughfare that links Asylum and Albany avenues, McGarry said. Scarborough Street drew the spotlight sev- eral years ago, when a "blended family,'' known then as the "Scarborough 11'' — some unrelat- ed — took up residence there. Their occupancy was a direct challenge to the city's zoning regu- lations tied to how many unrelated families can occupy a dwelling designated "single family.'' The city ultimately dropped its zoning suit. However, McGarry says lingering confu- sion over the area's zoning continues to scare buyers away. One Scarborough Street homeowner who challenged the city's valuation won out, McGarry said. The city at one time valued the property at $1.3 million, later reduced to $983,000. However, a lender once valued it at $659,000. The owner paid $610,000. City records show the assessment- appeals board reset the 150 Scarborough St. home's assessed value at $305,954 — $95,954 lower than the 2016 reval assessment, which McGarry says also was way down since the last reval five years ago. The aim, he says, is to stabilize values of those properties, to make them more attractive to buyers, actions that over time should benefit the entire neighborhood. "In my opinion, everybody on Scarborough Street and other West End properties were treated fairly,'' said McGarry, an ex-Hartford city councilmember who has served on the appeals board the past four years. Overall, city residential housing values fell slightly as a result of the revaluation. Another beneficiary of the appeals board's review is the owner of a vacant building for sale on Wethersfield Ave., in the city's South End. According to McGarry, the landlord of the former home of Monro Muffler told the appeals board he's had a tough time landing a buyer, largely because the property taxes are too high. The owner, McGarry said, persuaded the board to trim $40,950 from the property's assessed value, to $192,500. Though a "mod- est'' cut, McGarry said a sale of the property could restore it to a new use, contributing to the city's goal for more neighborhood eco- nomic development in the corridor. Another apparent winner was the owner of 29 units in downtown's Bushnell On The Park apartments, 100 Wells St. The appeals board lowered the units' assessed values by $1,031 each, to $4,735, city records show. Also, Tallar Properties, owner of a commer- cial building at 441-455 Homestead Ave., received the largest assessment reduction on appeal. The property's assessed value was cut in half, to $224,630 from $510,300, city records show. n Tax relief for city's Scarborough Street Largest Successful Commercial Property Assessment Appeals in Hartford Original Revised Change Taxpayer Address Assessment Assessment Assessment Talar Properties LLC 441-455 Homestead Ave. $510,300 $224,630 $(285,670) Michael Ricci Realty LLC 874 Windsor St. $1,141,910 $927,360 $(214,550) Peter Valin 199-211 Walnut St. $586,971 $375,060 $(211,911) Downtown Properties LLC 385-391 Main St. $1,401,890 $1,228,990 $(172,900) Our Mom`s LLC 80-88 Buckingham St. $499,940 $337,470 $(162,470) Admiral Realty LLC 609 Farmington Ave. $613,536 $469,210 $(144,326) J P Alexandre LLC 3155 Main St. $876,890 $737,660 $(139,230) Westland Place Limited Partnership 275-285 Westland St. $1,309,847 $1,190,770 $(119,077) Niles Gillett LLC 70 Gillett St. $1,123,199 $1,021,090 $(102,109) Parrotta Janice B Trustee 10 Woodside Cir. $374,120 $273,785 $(100,335) Collins Brothers LLC 83-85 Arch St. $337,190 $238,000 $(99,190) S O U R C E : H A R T F O R D A S S E S S O R ' S O F F I C E CityPlace I, II, above left, lost their assessment appeals, but this vacant property won. H B J P H O T O | G R E G O R Y S E A Y P H O T O S | H B J F I L E

• Cover