The Kansas Board of Tax Appeals has granted the ten-year property tax exemption for the vacant dialysis clinic at 2526 S. Main.

The board’s order, in Docket No. 2026-3773-IRBX, runs ten calendar years, from January 1, 2026 through December 31, 2035, or for as long as the bonds remain outstanding, whichever is shorter. Bourbon County Appraiser Matt Quick provided the order to FortScott.biz on Aug. 13. The copy he sent is stamped received Aug. 3.

The order was mailed July 30, the same day FortScott.biz reported that the city had finished its part and that no exemption had yet appeared in county records.

The industrial revenue bonds, in an amount not to exceed $800,000, were issued December 30, 2025. The order records $450,000 of that for improvements and $350,000 for personal property, which is already exempt under a separate statute and was not at issue.

What the break covers

The exemption reaches only the portion of the property paid for with bond money. It does not touch USD 234’s capital outlay levy — 7.998 mills, about 4.3 percent of the 186.696 mills on this parcel. Everything else can be abated, including Bourbon County’s share.

It is not automatic, and the paperwork does not end here. A claim has to be filed with the county appraiser before March 1 every year for ten years, and the exemption ends if taxes on the non-exempt portion go unpaid. The order puts that annual filing on the applicant  (the city). The city makes the filings, at Moka Rentals’ request.

The 2025 bill on the parcel was $65,343.80, paid in full on Dec. 18, 2025. The first tax statement the exemption can affect goes out this November.

The building, and who owns it

The order describes the property as “leased to Moka Rentals, L.L.C., who uses the subject as a dialysis treatment facility” — the language an exemption order uses for the qualifying use. The building was dark when FortScott.biz visited July 25: no signage, no activity, blinds drawn. It has been empty since Fresenius Medical Care closed it on Sept. 30, 2019.

The deal runs on two leases, which is how the city ends up a party to a tax case over a building it does not own. Moka Rentals, which the county lists as the owner and taxpayer of record, leases an interest in the property to the city; the city then leases the project back to Moka. That is a standard industrial revenue bond arrangement when the company already owns the building. Wichita used the same structure, drafted by the same bond counsel, for a $134 million project at Wesley Medical Center. Under the Fort Scott project lease, the city’s promise to keep filing for the exemption across the full ten years holds only “[s]ubject to the Project being continually operated as a dialysis center.”

There is still no announced opening date. In late July, the practice manager at Joplin Nephrology Consultants said there were “no updates as of right now” on the project.

Fort Scott has had no dialysis center since 2019. Patients drive to Pittsburg or Chanute, three times a week.