Representative Experience

Represented the Assessing Department of the City of Boston in the defense of assessments on a number of major office towers in downtown Boston. Our work included the city in cases involving Exchange Place, One Federal Street, 28 State Street, 225 Franklin Street, and the John Hancock Tower.

As a contractor to the Boston Redevelopment Authority, we have assisted in the process of land acquisition for the Massachusetts Convention Center in South Boston, which has involved takings of private and public land, as well as properties owned by utilities and an interstate railroad

Advised El Paso Natural Gas and its predecessor Tennessee Gas Pipeline for more than a decade in property-tax cases in the Appellate Tax Board and the Supreme Judicial Court. This work established that the real and personal property of interstate pipelines is to be taxed as property of a regulated public utility.

Assisted US Gen New England in establishing appropriate assessments for 18 electric-generating plants in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont, which were acquired in September 1998. In the course of this engagement, we provided strategic and litigation advice on a wide range of valuation issues, as well as on related constitutional and legislative matters.

Represented taxpayers, cities and towns in property-tax cases involving properties as diverse as shipyards; telephone systems, both landlines and cellular; restaurants; entertainment complexes; 1000-foot natural gas tankers; factories; parking structures; pumped storage facilities; schools; colleges and hospitals; and the class of waterfront property owners in a resort community. Our takings cases have involved developed and undeveloped parcels, including factory buildings, freight yards, suburban roadsides and other matters

Represented Verizon and its predecessors, Bell Atlantic, NYNEX and New England Telephone & Telegraph Company, on issues including property-tax cases on properties such as central office structures, bombproof multi-story switch facilities, cellular systems and the system of poles and wires located in the state of New Hampshire

On the eminent domain front, recent clients have included the Worcester Redevelopment Authority, in connection with its development of Medical City; the City of Chelsea, in its building of a new public school system; and the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, in connection with a number of projects, including the revitalization of the Old Colony train line and the development of the North Station area. In total, these representations have involved Foley Hoag in more than thirty takings, many of which are awaiting trial