From left, Scott Schrecengost, Celoron Mayor; David Hart, President and CEO of Hart Hotels; and Peter Krog, CEO of The Krog Group, hold the scissors to cut the ribbon symbolizing the opening and completion of the Chautauqua Harbor Hotel. P-J file photo

The owners of the Chautauqua Harbor Hotel in Celoron are asking to decrease the hotel’s taxable assessment by nearly two-thirds.

A petition was filed this week in state Supreme Court in Mayville asking the judge to reduce the hotel’s tax assessment from $25 million to $8.5 million. The project was billed as a $38 million project when the hotel opened in 2018.

Tax certiorari cases typically take at least a year, if not more than a year, to wind their way through the court system. But such a large assessment decrease could impact the budgets for the village of Celoron, town of Ellicott and the Southwestern Central School District when the property begins paying taxes.

Tax bills for 2024 posted on the county website show the hotel won’t pay any taxes on its $25 million property in 2024, but does own smaller parcels around the hotel that have taxes totaling less than $1,000. The Harbor Hotel project received a tourism payment in lieu of taxes, mortgage recording tax and sales tax benefits from the county IDA that were approved in 2016 before construction on the hotel began.

The filing’s timing comes with the hotel expected to begin paying PILOT payments to the county when new tax bills are finalized for 2025. In 2016, the hotel’s owners signed a 15-year PILOT agreement with the county Industrial Development Agency. The hotel doesn’t have to pay anything for its first five years in business. PILOT payments begin in year 6 – or 2025 for tax purposes – at 25% of the property’s assessed value. PILOT payments then increase to half of the property’s assessed value in years 11 through 15.

The tax assessment for the Target store on Fairmount Avenue is $2.9 million, according to 2024 tax rolls, with the retailer paying $40,414 in property taxes. The Chautauqua Harbor Hotel, at an assessment of $25 million, would pay more than $345,000 in total property taxes if it didn’t have a PILOT agreement with the county. At 25% of the hotel’s assessed value its PILOT payment would be about $86,000 while taxes on half of the $25 million assessment would total about $162,000.

An initial review of the hotel’s request isn’t scheduled until Sept. 17 in state Supreme Court in Mayville.

“The assessment of real property in the town of Ellicott is at a rate not exceeding 85% of true value,” the petition states. “While the said real property is assessed as aforesaid at a sum of $25,000,000, the real property is actually of a true full value which does not exceed the sum of $15,000, and the assessed value should be $8,500,000. The extent of such assessed overvaluation is $16,500,000. The said assessment of said property is unequal with other property in the town of Ellicott in that the assessment has been made at a higher proportionate value than the assessment of other properties on the said assessment rolls … Such inequality exists not only in specific instances, but generally throughout the assessment rolls of said Town of Ellicott and petitioner specifies, as instances of such inequality, all the other real properties assessed upon the same assessment rolls.”