Mahoning County Prepares to Auction South Side Annex
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – A Mahoning County official and the local auctioneer responsible for auctioning the county’s South Side Annex building are confident there will be bidders for the property, despite no interested parties showing up for a viewing of the property Friday.
Six prospective buyers have walked through the building, reported Jim Fortunato, county purchasing director. An earlier open house to permit individuals to inspect the property was held March 24. An auction of the property is scheduled for 11 a.m. Friday, with a final inspection one hour before its start.
“We have a number of interested parties. You never know until the day of the auction who’s going to show,” remarked George Roman III of George Roman Auctioneers Ltd., Canfield, which is conducting the auction on behalf of the county. “We’re optimistic about it. We’ve had a number of showings.”
Up for sale is the 97,232-square-foot building and just over four acres of land, including the building's parking lot and two parcels on West Florida Avenue. The building doesn’t have a basement but has loading docks, working elevators and a sprinkler system, Roman said.
The minimum opening bid is $75,000 for the property, less than a tenth of the total market value on the county auditor’s website, $958,400. A 10% nonrefundable deposit is due at time of auction.
“Some [interested parties] have come through several times and expressed interest,” Fortunato affirmed. “We hope they all show up the day of the auction but there has been interest expressed for this building.”
The two-story building was constructed in 1957 by the Cafaro Co., Youngstown, according to county records, and was occupied by the Sears department store chain until it relocated to the Southern Park Mall around 1970. The Treasure Island retail chain subsequently used the property, which Mahoning County purchased in 1975.
The county housed several departments in the building, including the Board of Elections, Board of Education, veterans’ services, title department and recycling, until relocating the departments to the Oakhill Renaissance Place, which the county purchased in 2006.
“It was like a one-stop central area,” Fortunato said. “Now we want to sell this building to eliminate the expense of maintaining it since it is no longer occupied.”
County expenses include maintenance of the sprinklers, boiler and elevators, and paying for utilities. “Inside you have a lot of preventive maintenance to keep the building where it should be as far as making sure all systems are working,” he said. Outside the building, the county is responsible for grass cutting and snow removal as well.
Fortunato and Roman, who were at Friday's viewing of the property, envision multiple potential end-uses for the site.
“You could have warehousing. There’d be plenty of space for that,” Roman speculated. “You could use it for retail. The windows are intact in front. They’re just veneered so you could have many different offices scattered throughout. It is partitioned off right now as the county had it for their departments.”
“It’s an open, big-box building,” Fortunato added. “All the walls you see aren’t load bearing so there’s a lot of potential to open this up for a warehouse. We’ve had churches want to move here to make it a recreational center. There’s potential even for distribution.”
Copyright 2014 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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