A new office complex is being planned in Santa Monica, where international developer Hines just purchased a shuttered industrial plant on Olympic Boulevard.

The Houston-based builder paid more than $75 million for the property, according to a real estate expert who asked not to be identified because terms of the deal were confidential. The seller was a family trust that had held the land since the 1950s.

Hines hopes to build two- to four-story office buildings totaling about 300,000 square feet on the 7-acre site. It is at the northeast corner of Olympic and 26th Street, said Colin Shepherd, a Hines senior vice president.

The assessment system is unfair, Hoosier homeowners say. Even the governor says it’s often ‘outright botched.’

With property values in Indiana being reassessed for the first time in six years, Laura Hile said she expected that the tax bill for her modest three-bedroom home would be big.

After all, state officials had warned residents to expect an increase of as much as 24%.
But when the bill arrived this summer, Hile’s annual taxes were almost 200% higher than before — an extra $3,000 a year. It’s more than she can afford to pay.