GUILDERLAND — While its parent company holds hostage the town’s industrial development agency for millions in tax breaks, Crossgates Mall has filed its fourth lawsuit against the town of Guilderland in as many years, seeking to slash its property assessment and by extension its own tax bill. 

Pyramid Management Group is facing its fourth lawsuit over the planned Costco. On June 5, paperwork was filed in Albany County Supreme Court to stop the project from moving forward.

In its Article 7 petition, filed July 24, Crossgates requested that an Albany County court lower its assessed filed from $234.2 million to $102 million.

The suit was filed by the three Pyramid-affiliated LLCs — Crossgates Mall General Company NewCo, Crossgates Mall DevCo, and PCC NewCo — that own the seven parcels making up Crossgates’ footprint against the town of Guilderland, its assessor, and board of assessment review.

In tax year 2023, the seven parcels paid a collective $6.1 million in taxes to the town of Guilderland, its special districts, school system, and Albany County. 
In the suit, the mall claims its assessed value should be slashed by over 56 percent because “the Property’s value had declined year-over-year due to various factors including continuing pressure on its ‘brick and mortar’ business from e-commerce, sales declines, rent declines, and increased vacancies due to record bankruptcies, store closures, and other factors (particularly for department stores and fashion retailers).”

In July 2020, citing the impact of the pandemic and the yearslong decline of brick-and-mortar retail, Crossgates asked the court to disappear $139 million from its $282 million tax assessment. The following July, Crossgates, again citing similar reasoning, requested a slash of $162.5 million from its assessed value of $282.5 million.

The mall’s July 2022 court filing, which sought to lower its $234 million assessment (which had been lowered by Guilderland’s assessor earlier in the year) to $109 million, stated it “advised the Assessor that the Property’s value had declined year-over-year due to various factors including continuing pressure on its ‘bricks and mortar’ business from e-commerce, sales declines, rent declines, and record bankruptcies and store closures (particularly for department stores and fashion retailers).”

The petition went on to argue that “the impact of these factors was compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic and its after-effects, which further caused a precipitous decline in the value of the Property in addition to, and on top of, the decline in value due to the impact of such factors.”

In its July 24 filing, the mall again cited the pandemic as a reason for its value decline, “The existing adverse trends impacting the Property were compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic and its after-effects, which further caused a decline in the value of the Property.”

Neither Pyramid nor the town immediately responded to requests for comment.