Opinion
March 30, 1967
Final order, entered on or about May 12, 1964, reducing assessments on petitioner's real property known as the General Telephone Building at 730 Third Avenue, Manhattan, for tax years 1959-60 through 1963-64, unanimously reversed, on the law and the facts, and assessments reinstated and confirmed, with $50 costs and disbursements to respondent-appellant-respondent. The property under review is a 28-story, modern, air-conditioned office building; almost, if not completely rented, and located in an area of great potential. It represents an over-all investment of over fourteen million dollars, a sum far exceeding the total assessment. It has, with some consistency, yielded a net return of approximately 9% on the assessed valuations. These facts are sufficient to preclude any reduction in the assessments. ( Matter of Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Tax Comm. of City of N.Y., 22 A.D.2d 870, affd. 16 N.Y.2d 935.) In the matter before us, the case against reduction is rendered more cogent by the fact that in 1959, in a sale lease back transaction, wherein New York Life Insurance Company paid $14,377,000 for the property, $2,400,000 was allocated to land alone. Moreover, the sole testimony of petitioner's expert is too slender a reed to support the conclusion of Special Term. The record, therefore, lacks substantial basis for a reduction of the assessments for the years in question. Settle order on notice.
Concur — Botein, P.J., Stevens, Steuer, Capozzoli and McGivern, JJ.