Palace Sports & Entertainment, the operator of the St. Pete Times Forum, goes to court today in its quest to significantly reduce its property tax bill.
The trial in Hillsborough County Circuit Court involves three years of property tax assessments, 1999 through 2001. The property appraiser has valued the land and building for those years at $83.9-million, $120-million and $110-million respectively.
However, Palace Sports' own appraisers put the value of the land and building at $20-million, $20.5-million and $21-million for the three years in question. Most of that - $17.7-million - is what its appraisers say is the value of the land, a figure with which the property appraiser roughly agrees.
The upshot is that the property appraiser says Palace Sports owes about $3-million in property taxes for the final disputed year alone, about $2.2-million more than Palace Sports claims.
Palace owns the Tampa Bay Lightning, the anchor tenant of the Times Forum. It argues that it is at a disadvantage as the only pro hockey team responsible for paying its full property tax bill. County officials say the Lightning has other incentives and agreed to pay taxes as part of its lease. They say some other hockey teams do in fact pay taxes.
