Primary Health Network Wins Bid for Banquet Center
SHARON, Pa. -- The Primary Health Network, immediately next to the former Shenango Valley Civic Center, offered the highest bid of $105,000 Tuesday afternoon to take title to the former banquet center. Primary Health intends to convert the 15,000-aquare-foot brick-and-block building to office space for its foundation and administrative offices.
Bidding began at $95,000 in the auction ordered by Mercer County Court of Common Pleas with Primary Health CEO Jack Laeng responding first. The auctioneer, Don Cresswell, working with George Roman Auctioneers Ltd., Canfield, Ohio, worked the small audience for a bid of $100,000, which took some three minutes to elicit.
Laeng immediately bid $105,000 and Cresswell could coax no further bids.
The two-story structure welcomed its last customer in December, says former owner Jim Sarvas. “Health issues” kept him and wife, Catherine, from devoting the time needed to run the banquet center they owned 25 years. Mrs. Sarvas suffered a stroke and he “had a couple of bouts with cancer,” he said after the auction.
Regardless, “77 but feeling like I’m 50,” Sarvas allowed the sale of the banquet center came “as kind of a relief.” He worked at or owned eight businesses at one time, including auto dealerships over 37 years, leaving that business in 1999, he said.
Today he devotes his energies to running ABC -- Advertising and Business Consulting -- a one-man marketing firm on Forker Boulevard, and as a commercial real estate agent for Sebastian Real Estate.
The banquet center was in business 25 years.
The banquet center, 60-80 Shenango Ave., looks to be in good condition, Laeng said, the carpets and floors showing little wear, the building clean and walls painted. The heating and air-conditioning systems are in good shape.
The roof, however, is 20 years old and he’ll order an inspection to determine whether it needs to be replaced.
The 12,000-square-foot Primary Health Network building, 100 Shenango Ave., will see its foundation and administrative offices move to the former banquet center. Some 25 work for the foundation and roughly 45 will move next door.
Work on converting the banquet center to offices should begin in two to four weeks, or as soon as Primary Health has title and contractors are lined up. The work itself should be completed within three months, Laeng projected.
Copyright 2013 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
CLICK HERE to subscribe to our free daily email headlines and to our twice-monthly print edition.