Value of building once used by IBM is slashed
The assessment of the Grant Avenue site has been reduced by about 62 percent — from $1.95 million to $750,000.
TOWN OF ULSTER, N.Y. » The town has agreed to sharply reduce the property assessment of a vacant building formerly used by IBM.
The assessed value of the building at 901 Grant Ave. has been lowered by about 62 percent, from $1.95 million to $750,000.
The new assessment is backdated to 2014, though the town will not have to refund any property tax payments for past years, according to the agreement between the town and the building’s owner. The town only will have to charge a lower amount going forward.
“As a negotiated settlement, they (the owners) agreed to waive refunds of prior year’s taxes if the town would adjust the value going forward to reflect the $750,000 value,” said town of Ulster Supervisor James Quigley.
The dollar amount of the tax reduction was not immediately available.
The building, on the north side of U.S. Route 209, is owned by a company called 901 Grant Avenue LLC, which bought it for $250,000 from the Edgewater Cos. in 2010.
The building measures 300,000 square feet and currently has some of its windows boarded up with plywood.
“The building has been stripped of all its valuable materials on the inside and is basically just a hollow shell,” Quigley said. “The owners have had the building appraised. The appraisal came out at basically the land value of $750,000.”
IBM used to rent the building, as well as an adjacent one, from Edgewater.
Most of IBM’s local operation was in companyowned buildings on the south side of Route 209. Those buildings were sold in 1998, three years after IBM shut down its Ulster operation, to downstate developer Alan Ginsberg, who renamed the property TechCity.