ROCKLAND, Maine — Another large company has asked the city for a tax break, saying its property is overvalued.
The Trade Winds Motor Inn and Liberty Hospitality of Maine LLC filed its abatement request Feb. 12, seeking to have the value of the Trade Winds Motor Inn and the timeshare units in it cut by $2.7 million.
If approved, the city would lose $54,000 in property taxes each year.
The Trade Winds request follows similar abatement requests by Wal-Mart and Ocean State Job Lot.
Ocean State Job Lot, which opened in March 2014, paid Wal-Mart $3,125,000 for the 94,000-square-foot commercial building located on 10.5 acres along Route 1 in Rockland at the Rockport town line. Wal-Mart sold the property after it relocated in October 2013 to a larger supercenter it built about 3 miles south on Route 1 in neighboring Thomaston.
Wal-Mart is seeking an abatement of more than $105,000 for 2013 taxes paid to Rockland while Ocean State’s request would slash its tax bill by about $55,000 annually.
Those two retailers are arguing the assessment on the property should be the same as the price paid by Ocean State in December 2013.
Wal-Mart’s request has been denied by the city assessor and the city’s board of assessment review. The international retailer has filed an appeal with the Maine Board of Property Tax Review. No hearing date has been set for that appeal.
The assessor has not acted on Ocean State’s request, pending receipt of more information from the company.
The Trade Winds and Liberty Hospitality are arguing the assessment on the hotel should be $1.3 million less than the $4.4 million assessment placed on the Park Drive complex. The hotel has 91 guest rooms, 13 staff rooms, a restaurant, fitness center, indoor pool and offices.
In addition, there are 16 timeshare units in the complex that have a combined assessment of $3.5 million, which the company maintains is about $1.4 million too much.
The certified public accountant submitting the appeal for the company states the property is overvalued when considering the income of the business and its the market value.
The assessor has not taken any action on this latest abatement request.