UPDATE: The City Planning Director Amanda Thompson tells DM that “The city has neither received nor approved any building permits for this property.”
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Udog sends along this report from Real Estate BisNow...
There’s a massive Veterans Affairs clinic coming to Decatur. It’s being built at the former DeVry University.
…Greenstone Properties has snagged a 20-year lease with Specialty Care Outpatient Clinic, which will serve VA patients, at 250N Arcadia Ave, a 103k SF building. The building will be fully renovated over 18 months. Carpenter/Robbins Corporate Real Estate’s Abbey Diller and Shamm Kelly repped the VA, while Newmark Grubb Knight Frank’s Bert Sanders and Ernest Kiser repped Greenstone.
Rendering courtesy of Real Estate BisNow
So, this is a private company and will be paying local taxes, right?
. . . and the first thing i think is: how much will this grow our city tax revenue?
oh, and yay!
You want to bet it will be tax exempt? That is my guess.
Being VA exclusive sounds like it will be classified as Government and therefor be tax exempt.
If I recall correctly, ownership of the property, not use, determines taxability. So, if the Devry property is owned by a private entity, the fact that it is leased to a government entity does not take it off the tax rolls. A long time ago, then City Attorney Tom Davis discovered that the property on which “Decatur Hospital” (now called something like “Dekalb Medical Center at CIty of Decatur”) across the little Kroger was owned by a private entity. The City had for many years treated the property has though it was a tax exempt hospital, but Mr. Davis discovered that the property was not tax exempt, it was just leased to a tax exempt entity. So, it had to pay property taxes. If my dim (and growing dimmer by the minute) memory is correct, then this Devry property will be taxable if it is owned by a private entity even if the property is leased to a governmental entity.
Excellent point since it is a lease. I sure hope you’re right. Decatur doesn’t need more tax exempt property, percentage wise we are way out of balance.
Here’s the link to the original article:
http://www.bisnow.com/commercial-real-estate/atlanta/whopper-of-a-va-project/
Will it lessen the hundreds of daily white transportation van trips?
Did Decatur ever annex the property?
Yes, Decatur did annex and rezoned it as “mixed use.” If memory serves, “mixed use” doesn’t actually have to be mixed use. It can be all residential, but I don’t think it can be all commercial. So DeVry might have to request that it be rezoned again back to commercial.
If Tom is right about the taxes, this seems like a great deal for the City/CSD, even if it doesn’t fit into the Grand Plan for Avondale Station which this is on the periphery of anyway.
This will be a taxable property and a great reuse of an existing building sorely needed for our vets!
Someone is probably already paying taxes on this property now. How will it being leased to a new tenant effect the taxes that are already being collected?
The improvements for the new use will be taken into account for assessment purposes. Plus I imagine the “apparent age” of the property will decrease.
Get a grip people! This is not about whether or how much in taxes, but about providing service and benefits to a group of individuals deserving of such for their service to our country. We need to only read the headlines to understand the difficulties now encountered by our veterans in getting timely and quality medical care. If this planned facility can ease the strain on current VA facilities, then it will be a blessing. Go for it!
The article says nothing about better service for veterans. It’s going to take more than new digs to get that–a massive dose of political and administrative will.
I’m sorry Bill, but you are the one missing the point. Those veterans served at grave consequence to themselves *precisely* so that privileged Decatur folk could exercise their God and Constitutionally given right to bitch and moan about whether or not projects such as this will financially benefit them 🙂
Yep, but better facilities is a start. I wish we had the political will.
Even better than the apparent tax revenue and economic spinoff from having a new employer in town is that this project, if it goes through, will result in absolutely ZERO new students in our school system.