The casino then appealed to Common Pleas Court, which bounced the case back to the BRT for a second hearing. It’s ludicrous!”įoxwood’s tax appeal case began in February 2006, and was initially denied by the BRT the following month. “I’ve been doing what I do for a very long time, as an appraiser, as a board member and as an educator, and I’ve never seen a report as meaningless as this. “So it’s your contention that the seller would have to give the buyer $900,000 just to take the property off his hands?” BRT vice chair Harvey M. That argument did not impress some on the Board of Revision of Taxes. To support the claim, Foxwoods offered the reports of two appraisers, one of whom valued the future casino site at negative $900,000 in 2006. Most importantly, the casino objects to any assessment that takes future gambling revenue into account, since the city has not yet rezoned the property to allow gambling and no casino has opened on the site. The other 12 acres are either piers or underwater portions of the river bed. If that’s true, the gambling concern would be spared millions in tax payments to the city, including $2.8 million they already owe.įoxwoods claims the site is devalued by problems of contamination, a collapsing bulkhead and the fact that only 18 of the 30 acres are so-called “fast land,” or dry land. Foxwoods Casino went before a city tax panel today to explain why their 30-acre property on the Delaware riverfront, now assessed at $45 million, may actually be worth less than $0.

Foxwoods casino financial statements