The bad news: Actual property taxes paid for class A office space in downtown Milwaukee are higher than those paid in most other downtown markets in the country, according to research by Boston-based Colliers International.
The good news: For the fourth quarter of 2006, downtown Milwaukee class A office space real estate taxes were $3.50 per square foot, which was unchanged from a year ago, and the Milwaukee taxes are still below the national downtown average of $3.67 per square foot according to the Colliers report.
Milwaukee has the 12th-highest downtown office space property taxes out of 40 downtown areas analyzed by Colliers.
The most expensive downtown class A office space property taxes are in Manhattan, where property taxes cost $11.50 per square foot according to Colliers. Other cities with high downtown class A office space property taxes include: Chicago, $9.50 per square foot; Boston, $8.25; Washington, D.C., $8.00; Hartford, Conn., $5.00; Los Angeles, $4.65; and Dallas, $4.10.
The lowest downtown class A office space property taxes, according to Colliers, are in Little Rock, Ark., with $1.05 per square foot.
Other cities with lower downtown class A office space property taxes than Milwaukee include: Cleveland, $3.17 per square foot; Cincinnati, $3.00; San Francisco, $2.80; Philadelphia, $2.70; Baltimore, $2.69; St. Louis, $2.38; Indianapolis, $2.37; Atlanta, $2.30; Kansas City, $2.25; Denver, $2.25 and Houston, $1.68.
Actual property taxes paid are different than tax rates. Actual property taxes that owners must pay are based on the value of the property and the tax rate set by government entities. The property value factor in that equation is a major reason why cities with high property values, including Manhattan and Chicago, have office buildings paying high amounts of property taxes, and cities with lower property values, such as Little Rock., pay lower property taxes, said Ross Moore, senior vice president of marketing and economic research for Colliers International.
For the year, property tax costs for class A downtown office space rose the most in Manhattan (27.8 percent), Los Angeles (33.3 percent) and St. Louis (19 percent), according to the Colliers Report. Milwaukee was one of several cities that saw no increase in downtown class A office space property tax costs for the year.
