RSR

Two years ago Jim O’Shell and three friends jumped at a chance to own a part of Hershey chocolate history and bought the towering yellow silos adjacent to the iconic twin smokestacks that were part of the original candy factory.

The partners paid $100,000 for the 2.5 acre property, which includes the 24 towering concrete silos arranged in two rows of 12, as well as six lower “star silos’’ nestled in the center of the rows.

Today, the partners remain hopeful that they can connect with a developer who can turn the cavernous spaces into condos or perhaps a luxury hotel, as was done with another group of silos that became the Quaker Square Inn at Ohio’s University of Akron.

But their dreams almost turned into a nightmare after the Dauphin County Office of Tax Assessment valued the silos at $2 million – meaning the new owners would be paying more than $100,000 every year in property taxes.

With the end of July the deadline to file a Dauphin County assessment appeal for this year, the saga of the silo assessment and the lesson for all property owners is a story worth telling. Cumberland County’s deadline is Sept. 1.

Read the full article at – RSR Realtors