Study Shows That Intown Athens Properties Subsidize the Suburbs

The massive house in Five Points that Kirby Smart recently put on the market is valued by the tax assessor at $3.1 million. A typical bungalow in Boulevard is worth $650,000. Which is more valuable? The answer might surprise you. The Lyndon Avenue house, which sits on about a tenth of an acre, is actually more productive, with a value of $6.9 million per acre. Smart’s mansion is worth $1.6 million per acre. In other words, denser development produces more tax bang for the land than large suburban lots. The same goes for commercial development. A big-box store on Atlanta Highway produces $144,000 in sales and property tax revenue per acre, wh…