Bird Kingdom flying away from high property taxes

[Glen]

http://www.niagarafallsreview.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1374219

world's biggest birdhouse. Bird Kingdom, the award-winning aviary on River Road, could move from Niagara Falls partly because its owner says its property taxes are too high.

"I guess we lost our appetite for Niagara Falls because of the way the tax structure is. It makes it very difficult to do business," said Larry Vann, a Niagara-on-the-Lake businessman who created the Niagara Falls aviary on River Road about five years ago.

Vann has put up for sale the River Road building that has housed the attraction since it opened in 2003, though he said the aviary is a viable business and will carry on. Other factors also went into the decision to list the building.

"The attraction doesn't generate the revenue to warrant staying here," he said Monday.

The aviary's total property tax bill was more than $225,000 in 2008. Vann said property taxes were about $60,000 in 1999 when his company bought the former Niagara Falls Museum building, which had housed a private collection of eclectic artifacts since 1958. Before that, the 101-year-old building was the old Spironella corset factory.

Interestingly if the $12,000 million asking price is equivalent to the 2008 MPAC assessment, it means that its property taxes were set to rise to further. A tax commercial tax bill of the 225,000 translates to an assessment of ~6million. If correct that means that the taxes were still under cap and would continue to rise over and above the normal budgetary increases.

 

[Hydrogen]

Interestingly if the $12,000 million asking price...

That sure is pricey!