Last year’s property tax revaluation in Newark sent ripples through the state’s largest city. But for many commercial property owners, they felt more like shockwaves.
Frank Ferruggia, an attorney with McCarter & English, said the tax burden on commercial property owners rose to 60 percent from 40 percent after last year’s revaluation, shifting away from single-family homes and small apartment buildings. That has raised alarm among owners with properties ranging from downtown office towers to warehouses in the Ironbound, who are all grappling with a market that still has not fully recovered.
“We think the numbers are really not supported by the market, and that will be resolved in tax court, either through settlement or trial,” said Ferruggia, who represents many downtown property owners in the Brick City. With a mayoral election coming in May, he said, “it’s something that the new administration…is going to have to face.”