By Eileen Buckley
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wbfo/local-wbfo-888321.mp3
Buffalo, NY – The mothballed Statler Towers still holds property value according to the City's Board of Assessment.
The last assessment of the Statler was $3.5 million. But yesterday the City's Assessment Board reduced the value to $1.2 million. The building is boarded up and mothballed in hopes of a new developer stepping forward. Martin Kennedy is City commissioner of Assessment and Taxation.
New Statler Redevelopment Group bought the Statler for $1.3 million at a bankruptcy auction last summer, but failed to come up with the final payments. The latest assessment is not what the attorney for the bankrupt owner was seeking. He wanted it to be assessed at a negative value of $12.2 million and considered a "dead building".
But despite a vacant Statler, Kennedy noted there is a great deal of interest in a number of vacant City properties.
The Assessment Board reduced the value of more than 1,500 properties yesterday. It issue a big reduction for the former Grace Manor Nursing Home at Symphony Circle from $5.5 million to $1.5 million. That property was auctioned for $1.6 million last November to Buffalo developer Carl Paladino.