Madison says building worth four times what Amazon says its worth
The Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to keep the county tax assessor's valuation of five Amazon Web Services data center buildings at roughly $292 million each, rejecting the company's estimate of about $70 million per building.
At the Aug. 18 public hearing on 2026 tax roll appeals, a representative of Amazon, James Polanski, told the board the company's cost-approach analysis placed the value near $324 per square foot. A speaker from the Madison County Tax Assessor's Office — identified inconsistently in meeting records as either Kennedy or Sass — defended the higher figure, saying, "But I feel that our assessment reflects the true value of the completed real property improvements uh necessary to support these operations. They're highly specialized data centers and uh this is not simply a conventional building or shell." The office noted Amazon had declined to share actual construction costs, calling it "an internal policy," and said "there's no more relevant data than the actual cost to replace it today."
The dispute involves more than $1 billion in contested taxable value across the five buildings, highlighting tension between the county's assessment authority and a major corporation's refusal to disclose cost data tied to its own tax bill.