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As Olympia & York prepares to hand creditors the keys to its office tower at 55 Water St., the dramatic drop in the market value of the once-prized property could spell bad news for New York City tax collectors.
The downtown Manhattan office building is just one of dozens of skyscrapers whose values have been plummeting. City budget monitors say this drop could lead to lower tax assessments, and thus less revenue for the city.
"We're not out of the woods yet on the fiscal impact of the (economic) downturn," said Charles Brecher, research director at the Citizens Budget Commission, a city budget watchdog.
If the 55 Water St. building were the only piece of troubled real estate in the city, its lowered tax bill would be a little more than a blip on the city's $29 billion budget. But dozens of other landmark buildings are in similar trouble,...