Restaurant development on an outparcel at the Chautauqua Mall is pictured. P-J photo by John Whittaker

The owner of the Chautauqua Mall is looking for another break on its tax assessment.

Chautauqua Mall Realty Holdings LLC has filed an Article 7 challenge to its assessment by the town of Busti, which is undergoing a property reassessment that has upset many town residents. It is also the second such request the mall has made since the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the mall’s court filing on July 2, 2025, its attorneys are asking for a decrease from the proposed $7.825 million for the three parcels that make up the entire mall property to $800,000.

The property reassessment Busti is undergoing was foreseen by state Supreme Court Justice Grace Hanlon when she ruled in 2023 that the mall’s property assessment should be reduced from $6 million to $4,020,000 through 2026. At the time, she wrote that if the town goes through a property reassessment the mall’s property value will use a $6 million fair market value multiplied by the new town equalization rate for the year the revaluation happens.

Court records show that in 2020 the mall’s assessment was $9,260,000, and that amount was reduced to $5,772,000. In 2021 the assessment was $9,260,000, and it was reduced to $5,592,000, and in 2022 the assessment was $9,260,000, and it has been reduced to $4,965,000. The 2023 tax assessment from the Busti tax assessor was $6 million — an amount mall officials said was too high even though the mall was purchased for $6 million in September 2022.

While the mall has continued to struggle filling retail space over the past two years, construction has begun on two new outparcel developments. Earlier this summer Quattro Development began work on a new Popeye’s and a Chipotle in parking lot space that had been used by JCPenney.

The mall isn’t the only Lakewood property owner to file a challenge to its new assessment. Morgan and Marlene Sample of Huntingdon, Pa., have also filed an assessment challenge in state Supreme Court over the new $1.5 million assessment on their Lake Street property in Lakewood. The Samples are asking their assessment be decreased by at least $250,000 to $1,250,000. The property had previously been assessed at $675,000.

“Petitioners assert and allege the respondents Assessor and Board of Assessments determination of assessed value was and is arbitrary and capricious,” attorney Stephen Sellstrom of Jamestown argued in the Samples’ court filing. “Petitioners verily believe that using the appropriate valuation criteria of the ‘willing buyer-willing seller with equal knowledge of the facts’ standard would result in a fair market valuation of $1,250,000 for the property.”