Former St. Mary’s Hospital property value drops significantly

The former St. Mary’s Hospital property will now generate thousands less in property taxes for Cole County.

The vacant property is now assessed at a value less than half its initial assessed value since it was sold.

According to the owners of the property, it would cost about $3.4 million for asbestos remediation in order to occupy the property again.

That, along with a deal that it cannot be used as another hospital or medical center dropped the value.

The county will lose about $17,000 on property taxes on the property, according to Cole County Assessor Chris Estes.

Officials originally looked at valuing the property at about $2.9 million, Estes said.

But after learning of the asbestos problem, that number dropped to $2.3 million and then $2 million.

However, the owners came back to dispute the valuation once again.

In these situations, the county could go to the state tax commission to settle the issue.

But Estes said the county would have to contract a commercial appraiser and pay for litigation costs which would have cost even more than the tax dollars that would be lost by decreasing the valuation.

“Basically we were looking at spending approximately $30,000 for $17,000 in taxes,” Estes said. “Didn’t make good sense. So we decided to negotiate with the taxpayer to come up with a reasonable value.”

The former St. Mary’s Hospital property is now valued at $1 million.

Jefferson City Public Schools told ABC 17 News even with the drop in value, the school district will still get more money from the property’s taxes than when it functioned as a hospital. That is because it did not have to pay property taxes as a Catholic Non-Profitable organization.