Lowe’s Fails to Win Property Tax Cut Under ‘Dark Store Theory’

A Wisconsin appeals court rejected Lowe’s Home Centers LLC’s bid for reducing property taxes on its store in suburban Milwaukee based on the company’s use of the “dark store theory” of property valuation.

Lowe’s argued to the Court of Appeals of Wisconsin that its improvement center in Wauwatosa, Wis., should have been appraised in 2015 as if it were “vacant, in transition, or distressed"—the so-called dark store theory—resulting in an assessment of $7.1 million. The court rejected that reasoning and also tossed Lowe’s argument that the 2015 assessment of $13.6 million must be discarded because the Wauwatosa assessor failed to ...