Big Tupper parcel, three others to be auctioned off November 7

A date and time has been set by county officials to sell the Big Tupper parcel and three other smaller parcels on and around Mt. Morris that were associated with the failed development of the Adirondack Club and Resort.

The four parcels will be offered for sale by auction on November 7 at 10a.m. at the kitchen/conference room of the county court house on Main Street, Malone.

The auction company is Absolute Auctions and Realty and its web site is AAR auctions.com.

The company was in Tupper Lake Monday photographing the four parcels. Information about parcels will likely be posted soon.

The county board of legislators decided this fall the four properties would be the subject of a separate auction and wouldn’t be included in the county’s annual auction of properties taken for back taxes.

This auction is also different as the county is setting minimum bids on each of the four, which represent the back taxes, plus interest and penalties that have accrued since the parcels went delinquent a number of years ago. Typically at its tax auctions, minimum bids are not set, and sometimes properties are sold for far less than what taxes are owed on them.

Treasurer Fran Perry said yesterday the minimum bid requirement this time is different than usual. “The minimum bid requested on each is the recoupment of the monies” owed to the county on each.

The largest parcel is the one on the top of Mt. Morris where Big Tupper Ski Center operated for nearly a half century- and where thousands came each winter to enjoy the great family-style skiing there.

There are three limited liability corporations that own the four parcels- and all were created by Philadelphia real estate attorney Michael Foxman and his partners.

Delinquent taxes date back to 2013.

The Big Tupper tract is owned by Big Tupper LLC and the back taxes owed amount to $290,560.80. Added to that are penalties of $12,897 and interest of $156,222 and a statutory fee of $9,193- producing a minimum bid amount of $468,873.

Big Tupper LLC also owns a small strip of shoreline on Tupper Lake that the developers had considered using as a place to draw water from the lake for the 600 plus unit proposed resort. Back taxes on the narrow lot are $9,879 and with interest, penalties and statutory fee the total grew to $15,912- which is the minimum bid for that parcel that first Thursday next month.

A third parcel on and around Cranberry Pond, which abuts the top edge of the Tupper Lake Golf Course around hole No. 7 where seasonal homes could be built is owned by Preserve Associates LLC.

Back taxes on it amount to $9,739. With penalties, interest and the fee, the total owed the county is $15,621 and that is its minimum bid.

The fourth parcel to be auctioned off that day is the site of Greg Smith’s former McDonald’s Boat Livery on Tupper Lake at Moody. Mr. Foxman and his partners razed the old house and marina building there over a decade ago and were planning to use it as the marina and boat livery, as well as a members’ clubhouse, for the new resort.

In recent years a wide dock there has been used by some of the local contractors to land their barges to carry equipment and materials to water only access properties where they were building seasonal houses on the back side of the lake.

The back taxes owed on the shoreline parcel is $91,519. Add $4,040 in penalties, $50,505 in interest and a statutory fee of $2,921 and the total owed becomes $148,987- which is the county’s minimum bid set.

There are some special twists with this unique type of county auction.

Treasurer Perry explained that the auction company is requiring a $100,000 “guarantee funds” sum that bidders must deposit at the time they register to bid on the Big Tupper parcel the November 7 sale. The requirement is only for the largest parcel where Big Tupper sat, she noted.

As usual, the county will require the winning bidder to pay 20% of the successful bid price on each parcel within 24 hours of the sale. The bid would be rejected, however, and the second highest bidder will be awarded it if the 20% of the bid price wasn’t paid.

Ms. Perry said the 24 hour time allowance is the normal practice, “because we don’t expect people to walk into our auctions” with 20% of what they intend to bid in their pockets.

She said she expects that however the 20% figures into the winning bid amount, the $100,000 advance deposit could be applied to the 20 percent amount.

The balance of the bid price must be paid within several weeks of the auction, she also noted.

For several years Supervisor Ricky Dattola and the members of the Tupper Lake Business Group which he formed at the bottom of the pandemic that March and the new economic development committee the town board formed when Mr. Dattola was first elected supervisor, and County Legislator Nedd Sparks have met regularly with the country treasurer and County Manager Donna Kissane to explore ways for the Town of Tupper Lake to be sold the mountain parcels for back taxes before any auction.

Mr. Sparks had won the support of his fellow legislators to give title of those lands back to the town to develop a four season recreation park there, with an eye to someday reopening the mountain to alpine skiing by a private developer who would be leased the land by the town.

The town board several years ago voted unanimously to buy the properties for back taxes from the county, if the opportunity ever arose.

A monkey wrench in that plan happened this spring when, according to Treasurer Perry, the New York State legislature changed its laws with respect to municipalities selling properties at public auction for back taxes owed. “The law, signed by Governor Hochul, requires, us now to get fair market value for property sold.” The law was passed by the state this past April.

The county process leading up to this proposed auction has been long and often delayed.

The county finally foreclosed on the four parcels in a special proceeding this spring, according to Ms. Perry.

County Court Judge Craig Carriero had ruled that a foreclosure could move forward, 30 days after all stakeholders and debtors were served notice of his order.

The notice was apparently served on July 16 and a notice of appeals was entered on August 13 by the biggest debtors- the consortium of legal firms who had represented Michael Foxman and Tom Lawson and other partners in the 12-year fight to win permits for their projects from the Adirondack Park Agency.

The proposed Adirondack Club and Resort project involved a complete modernization and redevelopment of the ski center, which closed here in 1999, the construction of a major motel adjacent to it and over 600 condominiums, townhouses and private single-family residences on 5,800 acres of Oval Wood Dish Liquidating Trust lands on the mountain surrounding the ski center, and to the east wrapping around Simond Pond.

Once in town hands plans by the local business group and the town’s economic development committee included opening up the ski mountain for back country skiing, the development of more nordic trails to supplement the town’s successful system in and around the golf course, hiking, mountain biking, picnicking, etc.

The county treasurer said in an earlier interview this issue has been on her plate for a long time and she is “looking forward to getting it settled.”

She said she took office as county treasurer in 2018 and the next year she “defaulted” the owners of those properties “because they were not making their contractual payment” as part of a tax repayment plan the property owners and her office had agreed upon.

She said the foreclosure process was started by her office and the county board “and then COVID hit.”

During the pandemic counties and other municipalities were prevented by the state from commencing or proceeding with foreclosure actions for unpaid taxes.

She said after COVID, “because we viewed this as a difficult situation, we started the process all over again because so much time had passed. We didn’t know if additional judgements had been filed in the interim.”

“So we started our search (for those judgements) over again and our in-house attorney,” who was Dick Edwards, “and because of the difficult situation we were in with this case, felt we needed special counsel that could litigate for us.”

That’s when the county board hired the firm of Phillips Lytel, a firm which specializes in litigation in these often unusual back tax cases. Ms. Perry and her staff are working with the firm’s Rochester office, although it has a number of offices across the country.

One of the reasons the process has taken so long was that the attorneys for Mr. Foxman and his partners had petitioned the county repeatedly for relief and assistance in recouping the alleged millions of dollars in legal fees owned by their clients, the developers. That was put aside earlier this year, however, when Judge Carriero ruled the foreclosure sale to go forward.

If the bid prices on the four parcels exceed the monies owed the county, the balances will go to the limited liability companies. In that event creditors may bring suit against those companies to try to collect what they believe is owed to them.