Magic Waters water slide in Draper and the 49th Street Galleria in Murray both are headed for a tax sale May 24 at the recommendation of Salt Lake County's Tax Subcommittee.
Delinquent taxes total $60,472 for GCL Investments' Magic Waters water theme park and $112,593 for The 49th Street Galleria Inc. indoor amusement center, according to letters presented Wednesday to the Salt Lake County Commission, which accepted the Tax Subcommittee's recommendations.GCL Investments owner Richard Watchman asked the county to defer Magic Waters from the auditor's tax sale list, which he said was in tax trouble when he bought the park in 1985.
"Due to the shoddy manner in which the water-slide park was managed by the previous two owners, the water slide was in severe financial trouble when I purchased it," he wrote to commissioners. "Over the last 18 months I have been successful in reorganizing the park and paying off a substantial portion of the bills," he said, adding that he planned to make the tax bill current this summer.
Owners of the 49th Street Galleria blame the county for "the piling on of inflated property tax assessments" and the nationwide savings and loan crisis for the Galleria's tax problem.
"In our case, our primary lender is a California savings and loan, which until 1986 was the nation's largest savings and loan institution," wrote F. LaVar Christensen, representing The Christensen Co.
He added that the S&L has since been taken over by the federal government. "For the last five years we have been compelled to wait patiently in line while the federal bureaucracy sorts out all of its financial obligations and works toward achieving a fair settlement with contractors, such as ourselves, whose day-to-day business activities have been entirely consumed by the burden of dealing with a federal agency that is never in a hurry."