UA Poses a Taxing Dilemma

Harvard University has delved into the business of acquiring real estate, angering a Massachusetts town that will lose a large percentage of its commercial tax base.

The University of Arkansas may be pulling the same stunt on the city of Fayetteville.

The UA is looking into purchasing the 154-unit College Park Apartments on Mt. Comfort Road, just a block off Garland Avenue near the Garland and North Street intersection. If it makes the purchase — a first of its kind for the UA — Fayetteville will lose a small tax base. Also, local companies will lose out on the opportunity to own and/or manage the complex since the entire deal hinges on the UA keeping the current management team, GMH Associates of Philadelphia, Pa.

College Park Communities, a division of GMH, is the nation’s largest owner and manager of off-campus housing

Harvard’s recent $162 million purchase of a 30-acre parcel of land may take away as much as $4.8 million in taxable revenue in 2003 from Watertown, Mass., due to Harvard’s tax-exempt status as a nonprofit organization. That would have represented about 35 percent of the town’s commercial tax base since there was 750,000 SF of office space on the land.

Two Massachusetts Democrat State senators are filing legislation to try to force Harvard to pay off the property taxes Watertown would have normally received.