After lawsuit wins, Crossgates saves over $1M annually in property taxes

by Sean Mulkerrin

GUILDERLAND — Perhaps there is a limit. 

Last month, Pyramid Management Group, the owner of Crossgates Mall, notified the Guilderland Industrial Development Agency that it was withdrawing its application for already-approved Costco Wholesale tax breaks worth $2.2 million. No reason was given. 

But an Enterprise compiling of Crossgates’ property tax payments show the mall and by extension its parent company have and are due to save millions due to successfully lowering Crossgates’ assessed value. 

The settlement of a series of lawsuits filed against the town of Guilderland between 2020 and 2024 yielded Crossgates an assessed value of $177 million, down from $282.5 million.

The most recent available public data show the seven parcels that make up Crossgates paid at least $1.37 million less in taxes than they did prior to the successful lowering of the mall’s assessment.

Going forward, Crossgates will not be depriving the schools, the town, or the county of revenue; rather, the difference in value between its former and current assessments is spread across the rest of the area’s taxpayers — the residents and businesses who own property.

In 2025, the mall paid $1.25 million in town and county taxes, while Crossgates’ 2022 town and county bill totaled $1.85 million. In 2024, the most-recent available data, Crossgates paid Guilderland schools $3.6 million in taxes. Two years earlier, that figure was $4.5 million.

 

More Guilderland News

  • The board at its March 4 meeting unanimously approved the project as well as a variance request from the town zoning code that would require the new structures to be set back 100 feet from the single-family lots on either side of the property. 

  • The board’s unanimous Feb. 4 vote overturned a building permit issued for a fence running along a shared driveway between the historic Norman Vale home and property at 3 Norman Vale Lane.

  • The 90 parking spots approved for 1671 Western Ave. are nearly triple the number of spaces the town’s zoning code allows but resolve what had become a persistent operational problem for the popular restaurant The Scene.

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