The Upper Perkiomen School District will pay back more than $494,000 to the owner of the former Quad/Graphics property as part of a property reassessment agreement. Property value assessments are used to calculate taxes, including those paid to the school district.

                Last week, during a public meeting, the school board voted to settle with QG Printing III (formerly Gruner Jahr Printing & Publishing) out of court.

                "We feel it is the best deal the district could have gotten," Solicitor Kenneth Roos said during the Jan. 12 public meeting.

                The settlement reduces the property's assessed value from 2012 to 2017. The assessment, which had previously been $9.618 million, decreases gradually each year. Decreases in assessed property value range from a low of $2.368 million in 2012. to a high of $4.008 million in 2017.

                The adjusted assessment for the 38.15-acre parcel, located at 668 Gravel Pike, for the current year is $5.610 million. The parcel is zoned I-Industrial.

                The district has until July 15 to provide QG Printing Inc. with its refund, which totals $494,511, according to Sandra Kassel, the district's business manager. Kassel said half of that amount has already been refunded.

                District officials spent $5,135 in legal fees on the case.

                Quad/Graphics filed a tax assessment appeal in 2014, according to Roos. Officials in Upper Hanover voted to authorize a payment of $144.14 to the township's solicitor to cover its share of appraisal costs relating to the assessment appeal, according to the minutes of the Sept. 9, 2015 public meeting. 

                The business, the biggest printer of magazines and catalogues in North America, announced in November of 2014 that was closing the facility in early 2016.  The facility was the former site of Brown Printing. The branch employed approximately 450 full-time workers more than 100 employees through a staffing agency. 

                QG Printing III Co., with a mailing address of Sussex, Wisc., has owned the property since Oct. 1, 1984, according to information posted on the county's property tax website.