Gazette company drops appeal of tax assessment

Gazette Communications has dismissed a court action filed last summer against the city's Board of Review in a dispute over the value of property in post-flood downtown Cedar Rapids.

In the months since Gazette Communications filed the action in Linn County District Court, the company's lender did a new appraisal of Gazette Communications' property as part of a loan refinancing. That new appraisal puts a higher value on the company's downtown property than the company had believed it was worth last summer when it went to court, the company's president/CEO Chuck Peters said Wednesday.

The court case in the valuation dispute was scheduled for trial in late September, and Peters said it was a matter the company had put on the back burner.

Suddenly, though, he said, the city of Cedar Rapids approached Gazette Communications about putting the city's new $45 million library on the block that now houses The Gazette and KCRG-TV9.

The company decided to revisit and dispose of the pending court action now since it was providing updated appraisal information to the city in regard to the library siting, Peters said.

In the dispute filed last summer over valuations, Gazette Communications said The Gazette building should be valued at $2.2 million and the KCRG-TV9 building at $1.1 million, arguing the property in the downtown had declined in value after the June 2008 flood. The city's Board of Review had decided on a $3 million value for The Gazette building and $1.708 million for the KCRG-TV9 building.

The dispute did not include the value of the parking ramp on the downtown block, but it did include The Gazette's printing plant on Bowling Street SW. The Board of Review valued that plant at $4.817 million; Gazette Communications contended the value should be $3 million.

It is not uncommon for businesses to appeal their city assessments, given that lower assessments mean lower property taxes.

The total assessed value of the Gazette Communications downtown block, with parking ramp, is $5.239 million, according to city figures. The company pays $116,000 a year in property taxes on that downtown property.

Peters on Wednesday said the new appraisal by the company's lender puts the value of the downtown property at more than $6 million.

The company has told the city's library board it will sell the property for a new library for $7.5 million, an amount that Peters said consists of the value of the property and some money for relocation expenses.

By way of comparison, the city says a second possible site for a new library, the Emerald Knights block, has an assessed value of $1.64 million, with the asking price by the owners of $3.375 million.

A third option, the TrueNorth site, has a city assessed value of $1.56 million with an asking price of $4 million plus $3.5 million for relocation expenses.