How much is the Thistledown racino in North Randall worth? That question will go back to the Ohio Board of Tax Appeals. The answer could be worth a lot of money to the Warrensville Heights School District, which collects property taxes from the site.
The school board has been arguing its case to the Ohio Supreme Court since 2010 and has twice been turned down.
In earlier cases the school board proposed that Thistledown is worth the $43 million that Harrah’s Ohio Acquisition Company paid for the 128 acre horse racing complex in a 2010 bankruptcy sale. The Board of Tax Appeals went with $13.8 million.
This time the Warrensville Heights City School District Board of Education hired appraiser Douglas Bovard.
He used a formula for what the owners might make to lease the land as a racino and came up with a value of $44.5 million.
Harrah’s hired its own appraiser who valued the land at $22 million after deducting the cost of the gambling licenses and personal property.
The Board of Tax Appeals found error with Bovard’s methods, questioning whether racinos are leased. It rejected his appraisal and agreed with Harrah’s $22 million.
The school board tried to submit additional evidence that racinos are leased in Maryland and Pennsylvania but the high court rejected that writing, “The school board’s argument is unpersuasive. The general rule is that ‘new evidence may not be submitted after a hearing.’”
The court did find that the BTA cannot reject in total Bovard’s argument.
“After recognizing that a property owner may be able to realize the value of its property by encumbering it with a lease, we concluded that an appraiser may take that possibility into account when valuing it,” the Court wrote in its opinion Tuesday.
The supreme court vacated the Board of Tax Appeals’ decision and remanded the case back to the Board to fully consider all the evidence in the matter.
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