In September 2021, Macy's accused the billboard's owner Kaufman Realty of negotiating to lease the space to an online retailer before Macy's most recent lease expired that August. Macy's claimed that the lessee was almost certainly Amazon and filed for an injunction preventing Kaufman from leasing the space to a competitor. Macy's claimed that a 1963 agreement prohibited such a lease "forever" and that an Amazon billboard would be highly visible during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
The funniest thing about internet land value tax discourse is all of the people who don’t realize that land is already taxed in cities like this.
As the other commenter discovered, the tax rate is very significant for this property.
But the core proposition doesn’t make sense, either. A land value tax wouldn’t force a property to be used for a less profitable use case. A LVT forces the property to be used for the most profitable use case because the tax would prevent people from using it for less profitable activities because that’s the only way to pay the high LVT.
Land value tax is an evil concept. Having to pay for land you already own is insane. Also, people already pay property tax, why should there be an additional tax.
A land value tax would be instead of a property tax. It encourages owners to either develop or sell to someone else willing to develop. Although in this case, I don't think it would actually encourage anything as it's clearly being used. The bottom of the building is being used as a store and the rest of the structure is holding up billboards. Most of the building itself is probably worth very little (it does look uninhabitable) so property taxes are lower than what they'd be if the plot was actually occupied with apartments or offices. The actual value comes from what's nearby which is the giant Macy's that wants a big billboard. Land value taxes are meant to prevent people from having relatively empty plots, like a big estate or a vacant plot, but there's already something here. Maybe it's not being used to its full potential but that would involve figuring out what it would take to actually develop and the future income against what the LVT would be. A dilapidated building serving as a billboard structure (plus the Sunglass Hut lease) is easy money, why upset that?
I used to work one block from there. For years I got off at that station and walked past the building but had no idea it was hiding something like that. Amazing!
It's a nice Saturday afternoon, and I'm literally in Midtown right now, wandering around after walking down 5th Avenue (it's shut down to cars today for "Summer Streets"). Perfect chance to walk over and take a look at this. I love city oddities like this.
Every bedroom of a rental is required to have a window in New York.
But in this part of town, the advertising rights alone probably vastly exceed any possible revenue from renting the building for residential use. It’s kind of like the tiny building in Times Square that has the ball on top. I don’t think people even realize there’s a building behind all of the billboards, but it was original New York Times building.
One Times Square is no longer fully empty (besides ground floor retail) you’re right that it is now just almost entirely empty as they’ve added an observation deck and a small visitors center/museum about the building as of January this year.
Some other buildings in Times Square keep several floors empty to use for signage instead, a minimum of which is actually mandated by the city.
I was thinking the same question. It certainly looks unoccupied -I can’t imagine people living in the other side but then again it _could_ be very well maintained and decorated on the inside despite the eyesore looks on the outside. Moreover since the lower floors are commercial it must mean that at least the upper floors are keeping out the elements.
I know. I was expecting something easier on the eye. Maybe a century of being behind billboards has wrecked it. The 1906/1907 photographs look much better.
In September 2021, Macy's accused the billboard's owner Kaufman Realty of negotiating to lease the space to an online retailer before Macy's most recent lease expired that August. Macy's claimed that the lessee was almost certainly Amazon and filed for an injunction preventing Kaufman from leasing the space to a competitor. Macy's claimed that a 1963 agreement prohibited such a lease "forever" and that an Amazon billboard would be highly visible during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.