The new owners of the Enfield Square mall have filed a lawsuit against the town seeking reduced valuations for eight parcels that make up the property, believing the assessment to be “excessive valuation.”
The Enfield Square mall, which had been in decline for many years, was bought for $11.4 million in December by three Long Island-based companies — real estate investment firm Namdar Realty Group, jewelry manufacturer Ch Hakimi Global Inc., and real estate investment company Mason Asset Management.
The town has valued the eight properties at $42.8 million, but according to the lawsuit filed June 14 in Hartford Superior Court, the mall’s new owners are seeking relief from the “wrongful assessments” of the properties located on Elm Street and Hazard Avenue.
The lawsuit says the owners are asking for reduction of the valuations to their true and actual values and reduction in the amount of taxes laid on the properties and the wrongful assessments on which they will be computed.
Additionally, the new owners want a refund for their overpayment of taxes in an amount greater than $15,000, exclusive of interests and costs.
The lawsuit asserts that the town’s Assessment and Revenue Collection Department has improperly determined the true and actual value of the properties and has “overvalued” and “overassessed” the mall.
The new owners appealed to the town’s Board of Assessment Appeals, but the board didn’t reduce the assessment of any of the properties, prompting the new owners to file an appeal in Hartford court to seek remediation.
The lawsuit states the assessment of the properties is “manifestly excessive” and could not have been arrived at except by disregarding the provisions of the statutes for determining the valuations.
Both Town Attorney Maria Elsden and Gregory Servodido, the plaintiffs’ legal counsel, declined to comment as the case is still pending.
While the mall at 90 Elm St. was sold at auction on Dec. 12, details surrounding the owners’ new plans for the site have remained relatively scarce.
In January, Elliot Nassim of Mason Asset Management told the Journal Inquirer he and his business partners were excited to be the new owners.
Nassim said Namdar Realty Group, the mall’s majority shareholder, bought the property because of its “amazing” location within the market. The single-story regional mall is directly off Interstate 91.
While Nassim didn’t reveal a lot of the company’s plans for the mall, he said it is looking at redeveloping the site. More definitive plans were said to become available over the next few months.
Prior to the sale, court documents state that J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. had owned the mall property since February 2016 after the bank foreclosed on a $240 million loan to the mall’s former owner, Centro Enfield LLC.
Centro Enfield, which bought the property in 2006 for $82 million, had unpaid debt that totaled about $67.5 million.
On June 20, 2017, Centro Enfield filed a similar wrongful assessment lawsuit against the town, appealing the decision from the town’s Board of Assessment Appeals.
The lawsuit stated Centro Enfield was “aggrieved” by the board’s actions and asked that the valuation of six of the parcels be reduced to 70 percent of their true and actual value.
The lawsuit stated that the valuation place on the property exceeded the percentage of its true and actual value on the assessment date, claiming the valuation to be “excessive, disproportionate, and unlawful.”
This lawsuit is still pending and a pretrial conference is scheduled for July 18.
Over the past two decades, there have been significant vacancies at the mall. The J.C. Penney department store left in 2000, Macy’s closed in 2016, and Sears shuttered in 2017.
Additionally, the few attempts to drum up business for the area have been unsuccessful.
In 2015, Centro Enfield pitched the mall as a site for a satellite casino to head off gamblers before the MGM Springfield casino opened in August, but a site in East Windsor was chosen instead.
Last year Enfield was among many metropolitan areas that sought to be the new location for Amazon’s second North American headquarters. But Amazon later eliminated Connecticut as a potential contender and chose two other sites — in New York City and Arlington, Virginia — for its new headquarters. Amazon later canceled its plans to build a headquarters in New York City.
