GE’s Crotonville campus in Ossining will stay on the tax rolls, with its new owner planning to operate the former corporate retreat as a conference center.
However, the property’s approximately $22 million selling price is likely to have an impact on its valuation, which hovered around $73 million, meaning the new owner could pay substantially less in taxes.
The 62-acre complex — complete with helipad, hotel, conference centers, restaurants and hiking trails — was sold April 3 to an entity named Crotonville Owner LLC, according to the county clerk’s website.
The property is being managed by Pyramid Global Hospitality as a conference center available for bookings by outside groups.
While pleased the campus was not purchased by a tax-exempt organization, Ossining Town Supervisor Elizabeth Feldman said the parcel’s taxes would be impacted by a lower assessment.
“We’re disappointed it sold for so much less, but excited that it’s going to keep its current use,” Feldman said. “We think it benefits the community.”
The sale price will likely play a role in determining the parcel’s valuation, Town Assessor Michael Fouassier said. Other factors are the income generated by the site and the value of improvements made to the premises. The town’s tax rolls for 2024 won’t be set until June.
CBRE, which handled the sale of the campus on Old Albany Post Road, did not publicly reveal the listing price.
Crotonville, which comprises several parcels but was sold as one, generated over $2.4 million in tax revenue in 2023, according to the Ossining Receiver of Taxes Office. Of that total, the Ossining School District received about $1.6 million, and the town and Westchester County shared about $831,000.
The campus opened in 1956 and is named for longtime GE CEO Jack Welch, who expanded the complex and often visited to run training sessions.
Bridget Gibbons, director of the Westchester County Office of Economic Development, toured Crotonville with GE representatives when it went on the market in 2022. She said maintaining the site as an event and training space “is a really good result for the county, for the municipality.”
“It’s such a fantastic facility, fully equipped, turnkey for use as an event space, a training space,” Gibbons said. “It has beautiful hotel rooms, fully featured in terms of places to eat, places to socialize as a group. It really has everything someone could ask for in terms of a facility like that.”
The era of corporate-owned headquarters like Crotonville for training, team-building and employee retention has faded, she said.
“I believe there are those relationships, but I’m not so sure these physical, almost like retreat properties are necessarily the way business is headed,” Gibbons added.
