Click here to subscribe today or Login.
The four-story Sterling Annex building on River Street in Wilkes-Barre is back on Luzerne County’s delinquent real estate tax auction list, records show.
Dozens of commercial properties are among the 2,400 eligible for the main annual first-stage sale Sept. 28.
The annex was once linked to the adjacent landmark Hotel Sterling, which was condemned and demolished in 2013. City officials are trying to sell the 2.07-acre hotel lot at the corner of River and Market streets to a developer.
G2A-B Realty LLC, owned by Bear Creek Village resident George Asimakopoulos, bought the century-old annex in 2012 for a mixed commercial/residential project with views of the Susquehanna River. But the plans never materialized, in part due to the company’s inability to cement an agreement for additional parking. The property has been on the market but has not sold.
A total of $95,966 in taxes are owed on the annex from 2012 through 2016.
Properties must be auctioned when taxes are at least two years past due unless the owners obtain removal through a court order, enter into a repayment plan or file for bankruptcy to get out of the sale.
G2A-B had entered into a repayment plan to escape a 2014 auction, but the property headed to auction again the following year because the owner paid $13,137 toward the debt but nothing more as required, records show. A judge removed the property from the 2015 sale because the company requested time to resolve an assessment dispute.
A county assessment appeals board reduced the property’s assessment from $1.622 million to $250,000 in 2013, but G2A-B maintained the reduction should be retroactive to 2012, when it purchased the property from the Greater Wilkes-Barre Development Corp. No subsequent court filings could be located showing G2A-B pursued a court action necessary to obtain a reduction back to 2012.
County tax-claim operator Northeast Revenue Service LLC placed the annex on next month’s sale after verifying the 2015 sale-removal order did not apply to subsequent auctions.
The minimum bid is set at $115,222 to cover the back taxes, unpaid 2017 taxes and realty transfer tax. Properties that don’t sell at the September auction will advance to a free-and-clear sale, when all liens and delinquent taxes are forgiven unless bidding competition drives up the purchase price to cover some or all of this debt.
Notable sites on block
Property owners also can pay the portion of taxes dating back two years and prior — in this sale up until the year 2015 — to escape the auction.
Among the other commercial properties listed for sale with starting bids over $25,000, according to county tax and property records:
• The Price Chopper, Wilkes-Barre Township Boulevard, Wilkes-Barre Township, $264,773, owned by PC WB LP.
This 9.16-acre property had been assessed at $7.1 million but was upped to a value of $9.5 million in 2014.
• A 19.23-acre storage building property on St. Mary’s Road in Hanover Township, $140,745.
It is owned by Stark Holdings Inc. and assessed at $1.16 million.
• “The Sanctuary,” a failed 27-acre Wright Township development owned by W-Cat Inc. on Church Road in Wright Township, $97,127.
• The Arena Bar & Grill on Coal Street in Wilkes-Barre owned by NT Circle Enterprises LLC, $90,463.
• A vacant 7.1-acre tract on Hillary Drive in Foster Township owned by White Haven Estates, $67,465.
The delinquent taxes date to 2010. The property had been pulled from a 2012 sale because it was flagged for further research, officials said.
• A cold-storage facility on New Commerce Boulevard in Hanover Township owned by J M Callahan & Sons Co., $51,506.
• A former factory at 447 New Grove St. in Wilkes-Barre owned by Future Horizons PA LTD, $50,299.
The owner bought the property for $500 in 2013 from the county’s repository, a pool of parcels in limbo because they did not sell at prior tax auctions. Future Horizons has argued the law requires the assessment to be lowered to the repository purchase amount. But the county assessment appeals board issued a decision this month keeping the assessed value at $225,000.
• A cement manufacturing operation on Main Street in Larksville owned by Shawnee Concrete & Asphalt, $47,478.
• A commercial property coded as a nursing home on 27th Street in Hazle Township owned by Amanda Sidari and others, $45,655.
• The former Flaming Star Tattoos shop at 86 S. Main St. in Wilkes-Barre owned by Jack Covert and others, $39,582.
Covert lost the property at a tax sale in 2013 but successfully reversed the sale in a subsequent Commonwealth Court challenge. His ownership — and delinquent taxes dating to 2010 — were restored.
• A commercial office building on Nesbitt Street in Larksville owned by MT Carmel Cogen Inc., $38,665.
• A commercial/residential building on North Main Street in Wilkes-Barre owned by H. Merritt Hughes Jr., $34,873.
• The Parkway restaurant property on the Sans Souci Parkway in Hanover Township owned by Nicholas and Cynthia Tsioles, $33,250.
• A day care center property on Route 1428 in Hanover Township owned by David and Melissa Define, $33,203.
• A commercial/residential building at 80 Main St., Luzerne, owned by Robert and Edna Morgan, $32,800.
• A shop at 1089 Wyoming Ave., Exeter, owned by Lee Roy Jones, $31,919.
• The former L.S. Bowl-A-Rama property at 102 Washington St. in Nanticoke owned by PS Capital Ventures Inc., $31,686.
• A commercial/residential building at 65 Oxford St., Hanover Township, owned by Minersville LLC, $30,287.
• A strip shopping center at 26 Laurel St., Pittston Township, owned by Sired LLC, $29,849.
• A retail property at 540 S. Main St. in Wilkes-Barre owned by Frank Hine, $29,538.
• An office/warehouse on Benedict Street in Pittston owned by Sailarina LLC, $28,182.
• A funeral parlor property at 504 Wyoming Ave., Wyoming, owned by Joseph Kopcza III, $27,818.
• A commercial/residential building at 715-717 N. Main St., Duryea, owned by Alfred and Mary Ann Baron, $27,060.
• A former skating rink at Lake and Noxen roads in Harveys Lake owned by Villas at Waterwood LLC, $27,043.
