[CPEO-BIF] "Owner wants to 'blight' building" in Escanaba, Michigan

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Owner wants to ‘blight’ building


by ILSA MATTHES
Escanaba Daily Press (MI)
December 20, 2018

ESCANABA - The Escanaba Brownfield Authority met Wednesday to hear a unique proposal from the owners of the former Super One building: If the owner blighted the property themselves would the authority approve the designation that could lead to the reimbursement of hundred of thousands of tax dollars?

In October, the authority rejected a proposal to designate the property as brownfield eligible based on functional obsolescence, a special designation for properties that are no longer able to adequately perform the functions for which they were intended. This could be due to a substantial loss in value or from other factors, such as being overcapacity, changes in technology, or deficiencies in design.

Dial Companies, which owns the building, had argued the property was functionally obsolete because the company could not find a tenant for the building based on its size, and a letter from Juli Kolbe, a level 4 assessor who serves as the equalization director for Delta County, agreed the building was functionally obsolete “with the lack of ability of the improvements to satisfy market standards of demands.”

…

For the entire article, see
http://www.dailypress.net/news/local-news/2018/12/owner-wants-to-blight-building/

--

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director
Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
P.O. Box 998, Mountain View, CA 94042
Voice/Fax: 650/961-8918 
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org

_______________________________________________
Brownfields mailing list
Brownfields@lists.cpeo.org
http://lists.cpeo.org/listinfo.cgi/brownfields-cpeo.org