Hundreds of Thousands? Millions?
- “(Hulman & Co. has spent) hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions, over the years to maintain the building, primarily because they are aware of the potential for the community and the heritage, and because they would like to see something done with it.” — Fred Nation, Hulman & Co. spokesman, January 1997.
If the company had indeed spent hundreds of thousands of dollars "to maintain the building", as Nation suggested, in 1997 it was certainly hard to see where the money went. By the time the hotel was sold and demolished in 2005, it was harder still. Pre-demolition photos from inside and outside the hotel indicate that little — if anything — had been “maintained” since the last business moved out in 1980, if not before.
One thing that did happen sometime in the hotel's last three years before its demolition was a property tax reassessment. Indiana's property tax assessment system, which had been predicated on the replacement cost of a particular property, was ruled unconstitutional in 1998. This led to a major overhaul of the system in 2001, with taxes to be determined by the market value of a property. The net effect of the change was that property taxes in most areas of the state skyrocketed. Just the opposite happened to the Terre Haute House, however. In 2003, its assessed value was lowered to $62,000, most likely because of its poor condition as evaluated during its reassessment, although the reasons are not clear and likely never will be. The net result was that, while many Hoosier taxpayers had to dig deep to pay their higher property taxes on their homes and businesses, the Hulman-George family saved about $60,000 in taxes over the years 2003 through 2005.
Property taxes paid to Vigo County on the Terre Haute House property at 700 Wabash Avenue:
- 2002: $23,600 (prior to reassessment, included here for comparison)
- 2003: $3,540
- 2004: $3,272
- 2005: $3,332
(NOTE: It is not clear if these figures include Terre Haute city property taxes or any other levies.)
Read more about this topic: Terre Haute House
Famous quotes containing the word hundreds:
“Books constitute capital. A library book lasts as long as a house, for hundreds of years. It is not, then, an article of mere consumption but fairly of capital, and often in the case of professional men, setting out in life, it is their only capital.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)